


Family, Like Iron, Can be Reforged

by CenturionsofRome



Series: Chosen of the Bijuu [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, No parings - they're 12, Not all relationships need romance, Platonic Relationships, Time Travel Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2020-08-10 11:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20134543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CenturionsofRome/pseuds/CenturionsofRome
Summary: Namikaze Naruto had lived a long and full life, far longer than any before him, but even he eventually had to leave for the Pure Lands as his body failed from extreme age. As the new Chosen of the Kyuubi, Uzumaki Naruto is left to help Kurama through his grief, though he is nowhere near alone in this mission thanks to their families.Elsewhere, threats long since cowed by the elder Naruto begin to crawl out of the holes they fled into, sensing an opportunity now that the greatest defender of the Bijuu has passed...





	1. Chapter 1

Naruto trotted down the street towards the academy in the form of a golden fox, using his small size to slip along the side of the street, unhindered by the morning crowds. None paid him any more than a slight glance. Due to Konoha having been the home of the Kyuubi no Kitsune for going on four generations now, foxes were a rather popular pet in Konoha, surpassing cats and beaten only by ninken (Though the Inuzuka rather skewed the numbers).

Today was the day for his final exam, and the only reason he wasn’t bouncing all over the place in excitement was because he was plotting. There were no doubts in his mind that he would pass, between his massive chakra reserves and the additional training given by Tou-chan’s Guards (Naruto was aware of their competition to see who could teach him the most spectacular jutsus without getting into trouble with his father and cheerfully took advantage) how could he not?

A chorus of barking abruptly started just ahead, causing everyone on the street to pause, looking for the commotion. Focusing his ears and nose, Naruto only got a few second’s warning to jump out of the way of a red fox with a chew toy in its mouth and a collar around its neck being pursued by an irate Shiba Inu, also a pet. Naruto watched them disappear down the street before it occurred to him that things had gotten worryingly quiet. Glancing up revealed that everyone was staring at him. It was at this point that he realized that when he had dodged the pets he had automatically stuck himself to the side of the building without thought. The only foxes that could use chakra like that were summons and shapeshifted shinobi, and Naruto was clearly not the former. Of the latter, only two people had the distinctive shade of his fur, and he was too small to pass as Tou-san.

The crowd of civilians surged towards Naruto, spouting a cacophony of noise that drowned out their words and set Naruto’s sensitive ears ringing as he spun and shot up the side of the stone building, inwardly cursing.

**_What happened?_** Kurama asked, concern tinged with a pit of panic.

Rather than explain Naruto shoved the memory over, causing a brief bust of amusement to cut through the Bijuu’s depression.

As Jiji had predicted, his death had broken Kurama, and the funeral certainly hadn’t helped matters. Naruto vividly remembered those early days, how Kurama’s grief had been so immense it nearly drowned Naruto’s endless optimism and cheerfulness, which had already been dimmed by Naruto’s own grief at loosing Jiji. There had been two rather terrifying days when Kurama had gotten lost in his head and memories and basically went catatonic. It had taken the combined efforts of Naruto, Kin, Dai, and all eight of the Bijuu (who contributed thorough the Saishin Sekai) to pull him out. Naruto still felt guilty at manipulating Kurama’s own guilt to get the Bijuu to manifest outside of the seal and stay there, but it was what had allowed them to finally help the ancient kitsune start to recover, his sons steadfastly remaining by his side and keeping him from dwelling. That had been several months ago, and while Kurama was still struggling with his depression he was mostly functional, and steadily improving as time went on.

Naruto eventually stopped on the roof across the street from his destination, warily watching the crowd gathered in front of the academy. Most of them were civilian parents come to wish their children good luck on the tests, he knew, but civilians had the annoying tendency to try and demand things from him, ranging from the innocuous, an autograph for instance, to trying to get Kurama to support their agenda. There was a reason most of the fangirls that bothered him were from civilian families. He also understood why Jiji had tended to stick to the primarily shinobi sections of the city when he was out, shinobi were at least circumspect in their observations and didn’t try to crowd him.

Glancing around for his ticket through the crowd without being mobbed or unwittingly stepped on (which hurt, especially when it was his tail) he saw Iruka approaching, on schedule. Dropping down from the roof into a small ally between buildings he waited until Iruka passed by before darting out and slipping in behind him, following as close to Iruka’s heels as he could without impeding the human’s movement. Iruka sighed without even looking, sensing Naruto’s chakra, and began to make his way through the crowd, no one looking down and noticing the little golden fox in the sensei’s wake due to greeting the human.

Iruka waited until they were within the academy before he spoke to Naruto.

“I don’t think you can take a written exam as a fox, so change back.”

Naruto flowed into human form and fell into step next to his sensei.

“So, you think you’re ready?” Iruka asked.

Naruto beamed.

“Always.”

* * *

Dan watched as Iruka left the classroom with the stack of tests in hand. Hopefully the reviews of contract law, official and threat rankings, and SOPs over the past week had paid off, but now it was time for the first practical exam: infiltration.

He led the class out into the training yard and to a shack that had been set up for the exam. It was a simple thing, one room with a single door and two windows that didn’t have glass but did have wooden shutters. Inside was a basic wooden table upon which lay several sheets of paper, one of which was the information the student needed to retrieve – their family tree, which started with the oldest of their relatives to move to Konoha.

In order to retrieve the information they would have to get past him and Iruka, once the latter returned from delivering the tests. Of course, Dan wouldn’t be doing his best to stop them – that would have been completely unfair – and would allow himself to be distracted, provided they weren’t too blatant, was ignoring his chakra sense, and wasn’t using any sensory augmentation jutsus. Each student had ten minutes from when he called their name to get the information, and as long as they got away and didn't destroy the shack they passed, though they obviously got more points if they didn't get spotted or go loud. 

Ino, who had been the second to go, had just completed her test (Dan had let her hit him with a Yamanaka Mind Jutsu) when Iruka returned.

“Any problems?” Dan asked.

“Everything’s fine,” Iruka replied, “Though I think Naruto’s up to something.”

Dan huffed.

“On one hand, it’s good to see he’s recovering from losing Naruto Senior, but…”

“Yeah.”

Sakura was next to take the test and she succeeded, using a genjutsu to fake several suspicious noises to “distract” the senseis, once again confirming Dan’s belief that she would be an excellent shinobi if she could just stop acting like a vapid airhead mooning over her crush. Following her was Kiba, who tried to use Akamaru to distract the two adults, only to lose his head when the puppy was promptly pinned and wound up with Iruka stuffing the ninken down the back of his partner’s pants and being captured. Dan gave Iruka an odd look after they let the Inuzuka go.

“Maybe next time he’ll learn to not risk Akamaru or at least finish the mission first,” was Iruka’s response.

Then it was Shikamaru’s turn, and neither sensei realized that the Nara had gotten past them until the ten minutes were up and they checked the table and found that the information was missing. Dan made a note to ask him how he managed that later.

Sasuke’s “distraction” involved launching a Great Fireball at them, missing but setting a large chunk of the training ground on fire, then shunshining in and out while the pair were busy putting out the blaze. While the young Uchiha did succeed, Dan marked him poorly.

Using a minor wind jutsu to blow away the smoke, Iruka said

“I’m starting to get paranoid about what Naruto’s got planned. Let’s do him next.”

Dan nodded and handed Iruka the folder containing the target papers so he could restock the table before focusing his chakra on his vocal chords.

“UZUMAKI NARUTO,” he called.

Iruka stepped out of the shack and the pair resumed their patrol around the makeshift building, handing the folder back as he did so. About a minute later Iruka groaned.

“He’s trying to impersonate me,” Iruka groused, “definitely using his shapeshifting abilities. He relies on them far too much. I’m going to step away for a bit, give him an opening.”

Dan nodded and Iruka disappeared into the still lightly smoldering shrubbery dotting this section of the grounds. A few seconds later Naruto – in Iruka’s form – strode into view, looking both rumpled and irate.

“Sorry I’m late, senpai,” Naruto said, and Dan noted that he had Iruka’s voice down perfectly, “_someone_ stuck a paralysis seal keyed to me in front of the yard door next to the main office.”

“And it took you this long to be freed from it?” Dan asked, deciding to play along for now.

“It was a customized seal, we had to wait on an Uzu nin to get me out. So who tried to set the yard on fire?”

Dan gave him a flat look.

“Really Naruto?”

“Naru – wait you think –“

“Iruka-kouhai has been with me since the start. You clearly didn’t think this through.”

“But I’m not Naruto!”

Ignoring the other mans protests Dan went though the shapeshift reversion jutsu.

And nothing happened.

Dan immediately got a sinking feeling, but cast the reversion jutsu again.

The man opposite him remained Iruka shaped.

“…paralysis seal you said.”

A nod.

Dan quickly strode to the shack and burst in, almost immediately noticing that Naruto’s target was not on the table, and a quick check through the folder revealed that it wasn’t there either.

He felt like he was about to either laugh or scream.

“_That brat!”_

* * *

As Naruto joined his classmates in lining up for their taijutsu exam, he became aware of Dan-sensei and Iruka-sensei glowering at him. He tried to give them an innocent look, but was unable to prevent his face from sliding into the pleased look of a fox that had managed to get into a hen house without anyone the wiser.

“I know we said that we’d have you pairing off for this test before,” Dan-sensei said, “but given two of you decided to be little shits in the previous test we’re invoking Sensei Privilege to change things a bit. Sasuke, your opponent will be Iruka. Naruto,” Dan-sensei gave him a malicious grin, “you’re mine.”

Naruto winced.

He gave a good showing, but still got soundly thumped.

* * *

The next test was evasion which… Smoke cloud, mass shadow clone, multiple shunshins, and did you pay any attention to that mouse hiding under a rock?

Needless to say, Naruto got full marks, as everyone expected.

The final test was offensive ninjutsu, which was arguably the easiest test for everyone to pass, you merely needed to demonstrate a jutsu capable of killing an enemy if it connected. This had a very wide variety of answers from the students. Sasuke launched his great fireball again, Shikamaru used shadow possession and a mock kunai, Hinata demonstrated Eight Trigrams, etc.

Naruto called up a rasengan.

When Iruka gave a small sigh of exasperation Naruto innocently asked if he would score higher if he summoned a bijuudama instead, and promptly broke down laughing at Iruka’s expression. (Not that he could have, Kurama hadn’t taught him any Chosen techniques yet, though he had been learning the rasengan as a stepping stone to learn the bijuudama, as the former was a derivative of the latter.)

* * *

Minato sighed as he went about his ritual upon arriving home from the office. Hat off, robes off, announce that he was back.

“In here,” Kushina called from the living room.

Minato entered to see his wife and their daughter leaning over a half complete seal.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Kaa-chan’s teaching me how to make reconstruction seals, like the ones Jiji carved into the Compound,” Remon answered as she carefully added another line, brushing a lock of her light red hair back behind her ear as it drifted forward again, “this way I don’t have to worry about Nii-san breaking my models again.”

Minato lightly shook his head at the reminder of the accident – and it was an accident – in question. Kakashi had been teaching Naruto how to use a cluster smoke bomb only for a malfunctioning bomblet to fail to detonate and instead go sailing through Remon’s open window and explode upon hitting the shelves she kept her model buildings on, causing several to topple onto the floor and break. Naruto had been as apologetic as Remon had been angry, and, without prompting, had immediately gone to the market to purchase replacement models and construction supplies out of his own pocket in apology. All of the adults had been quietly proud of Naruto’s immediate acceptance of responsibility.

“You do realize those seals can be a power hog, right?” Minato asked.

“So?”

He lightly chucked at the flippant response. Remon, despite having no interest in becoming a shinobi, still had chakra levels worthy of any Uzumaki. Power was rarely an issue.

“Where’s Naruto? I need to talk with him.”

Kushina groaned.

“What did he do this time?”

“Trapped Iruka in a paralysis seal and took his place in order to pass the infiltration exam.”

“Dan didn’t notice?”

“Nope. In fact, he initially thought Iruka was actually Naruto.”

Kushina huffed out an incredulous laugh while Remon shook her head in disbelief.

“On one hand, that’s quite impressive. On the other…”

“Yeah. And he used an Uzumaki special that I am fairly certain that neither of us taught him. They had to bring in a Junko to free Iruka.”

Kushina sighed.

“I have already given him permission to spend the night with Kin and Dai in the Compound. I know that those two are equivalent to a human in their late teens now, but I still don’t like them living all alone in the there. Especially since Kurama still isn’t always here mentally.”

Minato nodded.

“The conversation can wait until morning.”

* * *

Mizuki cautiously eyed the walls of the Namikaze Compound as he quietly walked towards it. In and out, he reminded himself, find the late Namikaze’s seals and haul ass to Ame. While any of Namikaze’s seals would fetch him a large price, he had been promised that if he could acquire a copy of the Chosen’s seal he would be set for life, with the wealth and influence he deserved.

It was nice to finally deal with someone who recognized his true value and appreciated it.

Best of all, this whole operation was basically risk free. With the death of Namikaze no one lived in the compound anymore, so that meant that he could take his time when he ransacked the place. His first stop was going to be Namikaze’s workshop, and finding a way around the seals on that had been a bitch and a half. The door, walls, and ceiling had all been warded well beyond his ability to break, but the floor had been neglected. Nonchalantly walking around to the back of the compound Mizuki dropped down into the carefully concealed tunnel that he had spent the past week excavating and, several minutes of dirty crawling later, emerged within the sealed workshop, summoning a dim red genjutsu light to preserve his night vision.

Unfortunately, it very quickly became apparent that the late Namikaze did not do any seal work in there, but there was a small collection of completed Elemental Orbs that Mizuki happily sealed into a storage scroll. Despite being less valuable than Namikaze’s seals, the fact that no more Orbs were being made (though he had seen several inferior varieties start popping up in the market) meant that their price had skyrocketed. Having finished stashing the lot, Mizuki scanned the walls and corners for a hidden compartment that might function as a security vault. Finding none, he used a jutsu that caused seals to flare white. The catch was that it also sent out a very noticeable chakra pulse to do so, but as the workshop was warded to prevent chakra from entering or exiting Mizuki was confident that no one would feel it. Unfortunately, the only seals that flared into existence were the security ones, which meant the vault wasn’t in the workshop.

Dropping back into his tunnel, Mizuki thought for a long moment about where else the seals could have been stashed. The first thing that came to mind was the old fox’s personal room, and if it wasn’t there… well he’d have to search the entire compound, wouldn’t he.

Emerging from his tunnel he jumped onto the roof and then down into the courtyard, immediately heading towards Namikaze’s room, which he knew the location of from previous scouting missions. Opening the door Mizuki looked around, his genjutsu light drifting in to illuminate the room.

…It still looked like someone still lived there. The futon had been removed, and a thin layer of dust was starting to settle, but otherwise it probably still looked exactly like it had when Namikaze had lived.

On one hand, there were no places for a physical hidden compartment to have been installed, aside from the non-structural interior dividers for the bathroom two of the walls face other previously occupied rooms and the other two face the exteriors of the building and the walls themselves simply were not thick enough to hide something in, so anything hidden would be by some kind of storage seal.

Mizuki grimaced and hoped the Uzumaki Manor was far enough away for the seal revealing jutsu to not be noticed as he pinged the room. He was promptly rewarded by a massive and complex seal flaring to life on the far wall behind several tables. That had to be the vault. Grinning he strode towards it, slowing when he spotted the small pile of scrolls on the floor in front of it, with a note stuck to the top in the Hokage’s handwriting.

_Remember to get Kurama to seal these away, last thing I need is Naruto or Remon playing around with them by accident._

Curious Mizuki picked one of the scrolls and unfurled it, revealing an intricate fuuinjutsu seal that he couldn’t make heads or tails of.

Then he heard the door open and spun around to see Uzumaki Naruto looking at him in half-asleep confusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an author, I do enjoy cliffhangers... hehehe....
> 
> I'm probably not going to focus too much on Kurama's depression, mainly because if I did I'd get myself so depressed that I wouldn't be able to continue writing. (Lost my mom to cancer five years ago [I was eighteen] and I'm still seeing Suki, my cat of eighteen years and dead as of last month, out of the corner of my eye)
> 
> So, what do you guys think of the new Academy Exams? Also, pity poor Dan and Iruka.
> 
> Finally, I've thought long and hard about this, but I just cannot see Minato signing off on start-of-cannon Sakura being on the same team as Naruto. I've thought about who could replace her and the only cannon character I can think of is Hinata, as I want to keep Ino-Shika-Cho intact and make sure that each team has at least one member of the opposite gender. Thoughts?


	2. Chapter 2

For an endless moment, time seemed to freeze, Mizuki standing in front of the Namikaze vault in full mission gear with a scroll that definitely did not belong to him in hand with Naruto standing at the door of his predecessor’s room in his orange pajama sweats and clearly having just woken up. Then the moment was broken as Mizuki drew and threw a kunai as Naruto leapt back through the door, though not fast enough to completely dodge the kunai, eliciting a cry of pain as it glanced off him, drawing blood. Almost simultaneously, he, as well as the rest of Konoha, felt the Kyuubi awaken, its power boiling into the air.

He had to end this _fast_.

Shunshining out the door Mizuki easily dodged the panicked fireball Naruto sent at him, charged the seal on the scroll with chakra and then threw the scroll at Naruto like a bomb. A blast of spectral crimson fire knocked it off course and Mizuki twisted around to see three furious kitsune emerging from the room next to the one he just exited, the Nine-Tails so large it barely fit through the doorway and all three had phantom crimson flames flickering over their fur.

Shit.

If he’s to escape, he’ll need a distraction, something that they’ll prioritize over following him. He can only think of one thing. Shunshining to the opposite side of the courtyard to escape two more blasts of foxfire, noticing that the wall of the compound where the scroll hit had turned into a swirling mess of distorted reality, he launched a brace of kunai at Naruto spaced such that he couldn’t dodge, though the kid tried. Naruto went down with a cry and a kunai in the chest just as Minato, Kushina, and two of Minato’s Guard teleported in, and then the Bijuu was suddenly in front of Mizuki. He barely had time to flinch before Kurama’s corrosive chakra enveloped him and all Mizuki knew was **_PAIN_**.

* * *

Minato sighed and rubbed his head as he sat behind his desk in the Hokage’s Tower, having failed to get any more sleep after having been woken in the middle of the night along with all of Konoha by Kurama’s rage. The image of Naruto on the ground with a kunai sticking out of his chest was still haunting his thoughts, even though he knew his son was fine thanks to Kurama’s regeneration though he had needed to cough up the blood that had leaked into his pierced lung. He knew that would be haunting his nightmares, joining the sacking of Kiri and Rin’s corpse.

Kurama hadn’t taken the sight well either, seeing his Chosen fall and with his previous Chosen’s death still so soon… well. Mizuki had been burned by Kurama’s foxfire while simultaneously being dissolved by the corrosive nature of his chakra. Minato didn’t fault the fox, even though the Yamanaka were racing to extract all the information they could from Mizuki’s mind before the man died from Bijuu chakra poisoning, burn, and acid damage. Tsunade’s best efforts had bought them a day or two at least.

Which was why he was coordinating the investigation from his office rather than remaining at home to fuss over Naruto, who had been badly shaken by the incident, like the rest of the family. He had to make sure that Mizuki had acted alone. Turns out, he had not been the only one with that thought, and most of his time since arriving at the office had been coordinating the half-dozen investigations that had been launched practically the moment Mizuki stopped screaming (four by his jounin, two by his ANBU). What felt like a full quarter of Konoha’s jounin was currently swarming Mizuki’s home and favorite places (Minato was concerned that the report saying that Mizuki’s house had been completely disassembled was neither a joke, euphemism, or exaggeration).

On one hand, Minato was so proud of his shinobi for immediately taking personal offense that someone, especially one of their own, had attacked his son and Kurama within Konoha, but it was so difficult for him to aim the firehose of their outrage and indignation when he was running on three, maybe four, hours of sleep after a previous long day.

* * *

Kakashi once more read over the profiles in front of him, trying to psych himself up for the latest impossible mission Minato-sensei had laid on him. His sentence had been delayed for a day due to the massive investigation into Mizuki yesterday, and was still ongoing though most had been returned to their normal duties, which caused the Shinobi Academy to delay the assigning of genin teams by a day, but now it was time to face his doom.

“Boss,” Pakun said, “if we’re any later for this, Kushina will have our heads. You’ve already delayed too long as is.”

Point.

Sweeping the profiles back into their storage seal Kakashi stood and, with great reluctance, left the barracks for the Guard Platoon (actually a series of apartments located across the street form the Uzumaki Manor) and began to make his way though Konoha. Once more, he cast his mind back two days ago, when sensei had sprung this on him.

* * *

Kakashi stared at Minato, trying to figure out if the man was playing a prank on him (it had happened before).

“…Very funny, sensei,” he finally said.

“I’m not joking, Kakashi.”

“But me? With genin? That’s the definition of a bad joke.”

“Not genin, _Naruto_. I’ve been hinting at this for months, I know you’ve picked up on it. Why is this such a surprise?”

“I thought you meant as his personal guard or similar, not his _sensei_. Just… why me? You know I’m bad with adult shinobi, much less baby ones. I’ll screw them up.”

“No, you won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Naruto will be on your team, and he knows you. He can translate Kakashi-speak and provide socialization for the rest of the team,” Minato smirked, “Possibly too much socialization.”

Kakashi was unable to stop himself from grinning at that but quickly sobered.

“Just… why me? Why not Itachi, or Genma, or Raido?”

“Genma and Raido have trouble keeping up with Naruto as he is now, once he has some training they’ll be left behind. As for Itachi, the only members of Naruto’s cohort that have a remote chance of keeping up with him are Sasuke and Nara Shikamaru, and the later is already claimed for the Ino-Shika-Cho team. Sasuke being on the team causes a conflict of interest for Itachi, which leaves you the only viable candidate.”

“…If Naruto and Sasuke are on the same team, who’s their third member? There aren’t many who can keep up with them.”

Minato handed over a folder containing a profile. Kakashi flipped it open and read.

“…Interesting choice, sensei.”

“She is not her father or grandfather. I’d recommend treating her as a shyer version of Rin.”

"Says here that she has an infatuation with Naruto.”

“Her and every other young girl in Konoha,” Minato groused, “The difference here is that she is able to put it aside and get things done, unlike, say Sakura, who immediately becomes useless the moment Naruto enters her field of view.”

Kakashi nodded at that.

“You know, one of the other options I considered was Gai.”

Kakashi _twitched_.

“…Fine.”

* * *

Kakashi looked up at the entrance to the Academy in trepidation, once more regretting having let Minato talk him into this. His delaying had made him two hours late, and he knew that Kushina was going to give him hell for that, but at the same time he wanted to be even later. As in “never showed up” later. But, against his better judgement, he marshaled his courage and walked in, heading to the room where his future genin were waiting. After a long moment staring at the door, he opened it and promptly had an eraser fall on his head.

Sigh.

He should have expected something after making Naruto wait for so long. At least he was recovering nicely from the fight against Mizuki. Kakashi eyed his new charges for a long moment. Naruto was grinning at managing to catch Kakashi with the eraser, Sasuke was pretending to be apathetic but was actually watching him with interest, and Hinata gave him an apologetic smile. Both Sasuke and Hinata were wearing their Konoha hitae-ate on their foreheads while Naruto was wearing the Kyuubi no Chosen hitae-ate (a fox’s head looking right, nine lines in a fan arrangement pointing left).

“My first impression of you is… you’re little shits.”

Naruto beamed proudly, Sasuke raised an eyebrow, and Hinata winced.

“Meet me on the roof.”

Kakashi promptly shunshined out the open classroom door to the stairwell and began to head up. Truthfully, he had just told them that to give himself time to think. So… what to do? Get them to… open up to each other? He tried to remember how Minato-sensei had gotten him to work with Rin and Obito, but he had been six at the time. Perhaps… yes that would probably give him something to branch off of, no matter how they answered. In theory.

Kakashi opened the door to the roof and sat down, continuing to think.

But once that idea runs its course, and it certainly would far sooner than he would like due to his own lack of social skills, then what? Team exercise? …Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. He had extensive knowledge of Naruto’s skills and abilities first hand and the dossiers on the other two gave an adequate overview of their skills, but he needed a baseline on their team work. How to test that though?

…The Bell Test, though that was a bit of a misnomer since it had been discontinued as a test since Minato had overhauled the academy, would work. Though he couldn’t threaten to send the one without a bell back to the Academy – Kushina would have his ass <strike>if</strike> when Naruto told her – so what could threaten them with? No, that wouldn’t work, Naruto knew of the Bell Test, so he might as well just be upfront about it being a test of their teamwork. Perhaps a reward?

The rooftop door opened and Kakashi watched the three children wander onto the roof and sit down opposite him.

“So,” Kakashi said after a pause, “we are going to start by introducing ourselves. Names, titles for those who have them, likes, dislikes, and dreams.”

“Wouldn’t our dossiers already tell you that?” Naruto asked.

“Not unless they can be used against you. For instance, yours notes that you can be baited into traps with ramen.”

Naruto flushed while Sasuke smirked and Hinata giggled only to cover her mouth with embarrassment. Admittedly, Kin and Dai had been aiming catch Naruto Senior in said prank trap, not his younger namesake, though it was doubtful that they would have succeeded against their original target.

“Was the ramen at least good?” Sasuke asked.

“No,” Naruto complained, “It was cold and had been made from the cheap instant ramen packets. The least they could have done was use Ichiraku’s and stick a warming seal on it.”

Kakashi smothered his grin.

“Naruto, why don’t you go first?”

“Uh, okay. I’m Uzumaki Naruto, Nidaime Kyuubi no Chosen. I like ramen, foxes, pranks, and learning cool jutsus. I dislike bullies, fangirls, and those who enslave others.” Hinata flinched at that. “My dream is to be worthy of Jiji’s legacy.”

Kakashi nodded.

“Sasuke-“

“Wait.”

Surprised at being interrupted Kakashi looked sharply at Naruto, noticing that the blonde’s eyes had gone slit eyed and crimson, and was currently staring at noting. After a long moment he abruptly scowled and his body language shifted.

“Fine,” he grumped, but it was Kurama’s voice coming from Naruto’s mouth, “Kurama, Kyuubi no Kitsune. I like hunting, pranks, and my kits. I dislike being forced to socialize,” that seemed more directed at Naruto than anyone else, “and those that see me as a thing to be used. My dream…” Kurama paused for a long moment before continuing quietly, “Naruto and my kits will not die before their time. I won’t let them.”

He blinked and quite clearly shoved Naruto back into control of his body.

Sasuke and Hinata were looking somewhat disturbed, the latter far more than the former.

“Sasuke, your turn.”

“Hn. Uchiha Sasuke. I like tomatoes and training. I dislike being compared to others. My dream is to be recognized as someone other than Itachi’s younger brother.”

Hinata started without needing to be asked.

“I-I’m Hyuuga Hinata. N-no titles. I l-like, um, cinnamon rolls and uh,” she glanced at Naruto and looked away, blushing furiously, “uh, I d-dislike being judged b-by my clan’s n-name. M-my dream is t-to make the Hyuuga a c-clan Konoha can be p-proud of.”

Kakashi took a deep breath when he realized it was his turn. _You’ll need to be honest, Kakashi,_ Minato’s voice in his head told him.

“Hatake Kakashi, the Fox’s Hound. I like my masks, so don’t try to remove them, and my ninken, who will eat you if you mess with them.”

He ignored Naruto’s whisper of “Not if you give them treats and belly rubs.”

“I dislike socializing, so don’t expect me to be this open in the future. My dream…”

What was his dream? When he was younger it had been “be the best shinobi around”, but he’d done that. So, what was his dream with this team – oh.

“My dream is to not have to bury any of you like my sensei did with my genin teammates.”

That caused Naruto to sober, Sasuke to wince and Hinata to flinch.

“Kakashi-nii,” Naruto said solemnly, leaning forward to place his hand on the jounin’s knee, “You won’t have to do that. I promise.”

Then the moment passed and Naruto leaned back.

“So, what’s next, sensei?”

“Team exercise. I need to know how well you lot can work together.”

“Are we using the Namikaze training grounds?”

Sasuke and Hinata looked at Naruto in surprise while Kakashi raised his eyebrows.

“_Can_ we?”

Naruto nodded.

“As I’m on the team, yeah. We’ll probably have to share the place with Kin and Dai from time to time, along with any Chosen who shows up and wants to practice though.”

That was more than acceptable. Due to the exceptionally large number of shinobi in Konoha, even if an increasingly large number of chakra wielders chose to not join the ranks, all of the public training grounds, and most of the clan training grounds, were all severely overused. Having access to a large training ground and only having to share it with a handful of others was far more than he could hope.

“Then we are,” he said as he stood, “Lead the way.”

* * *

Naruto was leading his team into his training grounds when Kurama abruptly asked

** _How exactly to you plan to keep your promise, kit? You know this life is dangerous, it is entirely possible for someone to die due to sheer bad luck and being at the wrong place at the wrong time._ **

Naruto blinked hard before resolutely focusing on their destination, which he could see ahead.

_…No matter… what… happens I won’t let sensei be the one to bury them. Please don’t push this, Kurama._

The ancient fox sent a burst of solemn acknowledgement before returning his attention to his avatar. Once the group of humans had gone a fair ways into the training ground Naruto turned back to them, noting Sasuke and Hinata curiously looking around, taking in the numerous dead and shattered trees, very uneven bamboo groves, burnt patches of ground, numerous craters, some filled with water, several crevasses, and multiple outcroppings of rock that had been violently thrust up through the soil.

“What _happened_ here?” Hinata wondered.

“Nearly a century of Chosen and Bijuu training and sparring. Oh, and you might want to watch your step, the number of high power jutsus that have been used on the ground here has left it more than a little unstable,” Naruto answered.

Ignoring the mildly apprehensive looks on his teammates he turned to Kakashi.

“So, does this work, sensei?”

Kakashi nodded.

“Yes, this is even better than I expected, the broken ground in particular will be excellent for awareness training. Thank you, Naruto.”

Naruto beamed.

“So what’s the team exercise we’re doing?”

Kakashi pulled out a bell from somewhere. Naruto had no idea how the jounin had kept the thing from jingling like it currently was as he spun it around his finger.

“It’s quite simple really, you lot need to get this bell off of me. If you do, I’ll get you lot some sweets. If not, too bad. And Naruto? I know how good your regeneration is, so don’t expect me to hold back against you like I will against your teammates.”

Naruto blanched a bit as Sasuke and Hinata both looked extremely worried.

“We’ll start in three, two-“

Kakashi abruptly launched a ball of plasma at Naruto and the "exercise" was on.

* * *

Kurama paused mid-sentence, drawing the attention of Kin and Dai, who were currently shapeshifted into human form, looking very similar to Naruto albeit with hair matching their dominate fur color, and trying to learn who to walk on two legs, along with Kushina, who was teaching them.

“Tou-chan?”

“Sorry, Kakashi is pushing Naruto hard, likely to encourage him to learn how to dodge rather than rely on our regeneration to tank the hits.”

“How hard?” Kushina asked with narrowed eyes.

“Naruto just pulled a kunai from his thigh,” Kurama reported, eyes vacant as he turned his attention to Naruto’s body, “And I'm healing several rather important tendons that got cut as I'm speaking. Also I’m pretty sure Naruto’s current outfit is only fit for rags now. We’re probably going to have to stock up on disposable clothes for Naruto if this level of training becomes regular.”

Kushina nodded.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to head to the hardware store. It appears that I have a doghouse to build.”

As she strode off the foxes heard her muse

“I wonder if those orange jumpsuits are still on clearance?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something that you may notice in my writing is that when it comes to combat, the characters I write don't stand around yapping at each other, instead they take down their foes fast and /hard/. Talking is very much not a free action in my works.
> 
> Yes, Konoha has become rather protective and proud of "their" Bijuu, kinda like how Brits get when someone tries to mess with their monarch.
> 
> Kushina does end up building a dog house, but despite her best efforts the only ones who use it are Kakashi's ninken. Naruto does end up wearing his distinctive eye-bleed orange suit in training, though he wears standard shinobi garb when on mission.


	3. Chapter 3

Kakashi had signed his brats up for their first D-rank after three weeks of fairly standard training, or at least, standard for him, which he knew was more than a little different from the same meaning for most shinobi. Naruto had taken to the training without much fuss, having trained with the Guard Platoon fairly regularly for years, as had Sasuke, who had used Itachi’s training regimen as his own benchmark since starting the academy. Hinata had struggled initially, being a rather normal genin placed with three exceptional shinobi, but was now beginning to show significant improvement. Kakashi doubted that she’d ever become par with either of her teammates (Sasuke, like Kakashi himself, belonged to a class above most shinobi, and Naruto was a class unto himself, even among other Chosen) but he fully expected her to reach the same level as Genma or Raido, and they were definitely a cut above the rest. And now that she wasn’t nearly as much of a drag on the team (which admittedly wasn’t her fault) Kakashi was confident to have them start doing missions. That had been two weeks and a dozen missions ago.

D-ranks had changed significantly since he was a genin. Then they had been chores with a fancy name, and despite the much smaller shinobi population back then there still hadn’t been enough D-ranks to go around, to some genin’s admitted delight. Once again living up to his title of “The Complacent”, Hiruzen had ignored the growing problem. Minato, having long been frustrated by the situation, had not, completely overhauling the entire D-rank system within his first year of taking office.

D-ranks were now truly classified as the training missions many a jounin-sensei had passed them off as, with the former chores now becoming mission objectives fought over by competing genin teams. Babysitting became bodyguarding, painting became sabotage/counter-sabotage, grocery shopping became convoy escort/interception, and so on. Before each mission the jounin-senseis of the competing teams would meet to hash out things like safe zones, mission area boundaries, win/lose conditions, and so forth.

Kakashi was returning to the Namikaze training grounds from one such negotiation in fact. Entering the grounds he let out a quick whistle and his genin shunshined in front of him from where they had been training.

“We’ve got a new D-rank,” he announced.

“Really? Oh, I almost forgot,” Naruto said before diving into his pack, eventually coming up with four rather strange looking pieces of headgear, consisting of a headband, a chin strap, and a large vellum patch with an intricate seal on it. “These are prototype communication seals that I managed to convince Kaa-chan to let us field test, but we’ll have to do a write up of how well they worked.”

Kakashi curiously examined the one he was handed.

“These look like they will obstruct hearing from whichever ear you put them over,” he noted.

“They kinda do,” Naruto admitted, “Kaa-chan’s already working on that for the next version.”

Kakashi turned away so that the genin couldn’t see his face as he slipped it on. It did obstruct his hearing from the ear it covered somewhat, but not anywhere near to the level that he expected. Turning back he saw that the rest of his team were finishing putting on their own communicators.

“How do we use these?” he asked.

“Like this.” Naruto touched his finger to the seal over his ear and his next sentence had a weird echo due to coming from his mouth and next to Kakashi’s ear simultaneously. “Kaa-chan is hoping to be able to make it so that they can be activated just by using our chakra, but she’s admitted that getting so it so that they wouldn’t activated any time we channel chakra will likely take years.”

Kakashi nodded.

“Can they be intercepted or tracked?”

“No, Kaa-chan was certain of that. Unfortunately the way they’re made means that they all have to be linked together when made, and each additional communicator adds an order of magnitude more complexity. She said she once made a six-way network, but four-way is the practical limit.”

“What’s the mission?” Sasuke interrupted.

Kakashi tore his mind away from the implications of the new equipment.

“Hostile VIP extraction.”

“Tora,” his genin groaned in harmony.

He beamed at them.

“Yep!”

“Who is our OpFor?” the Uchiha asked.

“Everybody!” Kakashi took great delight in their flat looks. “…Teams Eight, Ten, and Gai, and they’re working together.”

He basked in the profanity that came from Naruto and Sasuke along with Hinata’s horror. Did they seriously expect that they could regularly flatten other genin teams without the senseis conspiring to make things harder?

* * *

Shikamaru led the taskforce (what else to you call three teams working together?) across the roofs of Konoha, looking for their foes. Technically, they were supposed to be looking for Tora, but they were actually looking for Team Seven. All of them had been on the wrong end of that team, with several humiliating defeats, and all wanted payback. When planning for the mission, everyone had agreed – Tora would keep. But if left alone for too long, Team Seven _would_ pick them off one by one, so they needed to take out their opposition before starting the search for Tora.

A very distinctive and familiar yowl rent the air causing the group to pause, look at each other, collectively shrug and divert towards it. Finding Tora was definitely unexpected, but they’d take it. A win was a win, after all, and in any case it sounded like Team Seven had already flushed the cat out of its hiding place. With any luck, all they’d have to deal with was a couple of Naruto’s shadow clones to secure the cat.

It took about a minute for the force to surround the warehouse from which they could hear Tora’s outrage emanating from.

“How many are in there?” Shikamaru asked Shino.

“My kikaichu are only detecting Naruto’s chakra. I suspect clones.”

The Nara nodded and signaled the force to move in. In an actual mission, he’d have them go in through the windows, but on a D-rank if they broke something without it having been okayed for destruction beforehand they’d have to pay for a replacement of whatever they broke. That was one of the reasons, in addition to assessing their performance, that their senseis were discretely shadowing them, and why Shikamaru ordered them to enter through the doors, reluctant at taking such an easily trapped route but with no viable alternative.

Thankfully neither the front nor side door were trapped or locked, allowing them easy access to the warehouse, at which point they just had to follow the clattering, crashing, and indignant yowling. It was Sakura who saw the action first.

“NARUTO-KUN!” she cried, and was promptly sent flying by a Chakra Ball (a powered down derivative of the rasengan that was mostly non-lethal, to shinobi at least).

Shikamaru couldn’t stop himself from groaning and facepalming. One of the rules of the D-rank, meant to limit the amount of high-powered jutsus being thrown around, was that any solid connection was to be considered an incapacitating hit, no matter the actual power of the jutsu itself or if the target had armor or regeneration.

“Apologies, Shikamaru-san, I had hoped we had trained her out of that,” Shino said as the rest of the task force engaged the three Naruto clones that had treed Tora up a shelf.

“DYNAMIC ENTRY!”

“You are with range of my divination.”

“Let’s get ‘im Akamaru!” “Bark bark!”

The clones tried to dodge, but were hemmed in by the shelves of the warehouse and were caught in a crossfire, though they did manage to each get off a single shot before dispersing. Lee and Neji both dodged the Chakra Balls sent at them, and Ino nearly managed it, the ball catching her left forearm and sending her arm whipping behind her in a rather painful fashion.

“Ino, you’re down,” Asuma-sensei said as he, Kurenai, and Gai sedately entered the warehouse behind their teams, “In a real fight that’d probably have been a rasengan and you’d have lost your arm.”

“Seriously, Sakura?” Kurenai groaned at her student, who was lying on the floor rubbing her chest where the Chakra Ball had hit and was having minor difficulty breathing (Shikamaru suspected bruised ribs), “you’re dead and a teammate has been literally disarmed because you couldn’t keep your head.”

As the taskforce gathered beneath Tora, Shikamaru looked up at their target, getting mildly suspicious at how quiet the cat was.

And saw a small smirk on its feline face.

Eyes widening he pulled up a shadow shield as Neji cried “Look-“

Bang.

There was a long moment before he heard Kurenai sigh.

“If you’ve been hit with pink paint, you’re dead,” she said with resignation.

“That was a most un-youthful trap,” Gai commented.

Dropping the shield Shikamaru looked around at the pink… everything. The shield he had called up at the last second had kept himself and Shino from being hit, he could see Choji releasing Kiba, having successfully shielded him with his own large bulk, and Tenten stepped out from behind a shelf. Everyone else, including Akamaru, was very much covered in pink paint from the exploding Tora-shaped clone.

“Did _anyone_ know Naruto could do that?” Shikamaru asked plaintively, getting a chorus of “no”s in response.

He sighed.

“That’s it then.”

“Do no let your flames of youth dim, my youthful students!” Gai exclaimed, “You may yet still win by retrieving Tora before Team Seven!”

Shikamaru nodded unenthusiastically and gestured for Shino, Kiba, and Tenten to follow him.

“We’ll interdict them just in front of the mission building. Whoever manages to grab Tora is to run immediately, the rest of us are to sell our lives as dearly as possible.”

* * *

The team had been waiting around for most of an hour when they first heard it, a few bars of music carried on the wind, but it quickly resolved into a familiar tune.

Yakety Sax.

The four surviving members of the task force of Teams Eight, Ten, and Gai traded apprehensive looks, and turned back just in time to see a _sea_ of Toras boil out into the street and swarm towards them, their tails having been replaced with cartoon bomb wicks which ignited upon seeing the four hapless genin.

Shikamaru closed his eyes in despair, Kiba whimpered, and Tenten sobbed out

“Oh, _fuck you, Naruto!”_

* * *

Naruto beamed and struggled to refrain from bouncing while Kurama cackled in his head, Sasuke looked particularly smug, and Hinata had a small shy smile on her face as the last four members of Team Seven’s OpFor _squelched_ into the conference room for the standard post D-rank debrief, dripping rainbows behind them.

“I,” Kiba announced, “will never be able to listen to Yakety Sax the same way ever again.”

“That was my contribution,” Sasuke told him, voice dripping smugness as much as Kiba was actually dripping.

All genin not a part of Team Seven glared at him, but that only made him smugger.

Kurenai looked at the tie-died genin, the rainbow trail on the floor behind them, and the plastic chairs around the table and asked

“Please tell me the paint is water soluble.”

“It is,” Naruto confirmed, “I double checked before using.”

There were several sighs of relief and the four sat down, continuing to glare.

“So,” Kakashi chirped cheerfully, “debrief time. Let’s start with what went wrong.”

“You pit us against Team Seven,” Kiba growled.

“Kiba,” Kurenai warned, causing him to subside reluctantly.

“We failed to adequately scout the warehouse,” Shikamaru reported, “When we entered I should have had Shino use his kikaichu to scout and sample the chakra of everything in the building, including the Tora clone.” He shook his head in recrimination. “I’ve _seen_ Naruto’s clones take on non-human shapes before. I should have thought that the cat might be a clone as well. I also should have had Sakura on overwatch for non-clone members of Team Seven rather than let her blow the ambush.”

Sakura winced but quickly went back to trying to catch Naruto’s gaze.

“We had several alternate plans for if you didn’t take the bait,” Naruto said, “Though I didn’t expect the trap to be as effective as it was.”

“Why did you then decide to lay an ambush rather than look for Tora?” Asuma asked.

Shikamaru huffed.

“One, Naruto is fully capable of covering all of Konoha in clones, two, we had no way of knowing if the next Tora sighting would also be a trap, and three, we had been reduced to four. We had no chance in a straight fight. As for why there, Team Seven could be anywhere in Konoha, but they would have to return here in order to complete the mission, which meant that not only was this the logical place for an ambush, it was also the only possible place for an ambush. I knew that Team Seven would attempt to counter the ambush everyone knew I was going to spring, but I don’t think anyone expected the swarm of Tora bomb clones.”

The senseis gave brief chuckles at that.

“Naruto?” Kakashi asked.

Naruto shrugged.

“Everything basically went right for us. The mass clone grid search and Tora retrieval sections worked like they usually do, the trap was way more effective than we expected, the comms worked well, and we steamrolled the ambush with a clone swarm without risking either us or Tora.”

“Comms?” Asuma asked.

Naruto pulled his out of a pocket.

“They’re prototypes Kaa-chan is having us test out,” he explained, “They let us communicate with our teammates over significant distances. It’ll probably be years before full production, sorry.”

Everyone without a comm seal looked dejected at that.

“Anything else?” Kakashi asked.

When no one said anything Gai stood.

“Come my students. Let us shower away this defeat and thus restore our flames of youth!”

As everyone else stood Naruto said

“I sent a clone to Kin and Dai before the ambush and they managed to get pictures. Does anyone want a copy?”

The glares that elicited turned into sulks when all the senseis raised a hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kushina basically invented a quantum entanglement communicator.
> 
> I originally got the idea for the D-ranks from The Bearded One's fic "Kitsune's Power" on ff.net. Granted, that was just Naruto and Anko fucking with everyone else, but I thought it was a good idea and expanded on it.
> 
> Also, Naruto can be such a little shit at times. But we love him for it. :)


	4. Chapter 4

Minato stared thoughtfully at the mission application on his desk. Normally, missions, even fraudulent ones which this one most certainly was, were handled by the Mission Office and the only missions he involved himself on were A and S-ranks of significant importance to Konoha. The application was for a C-rank guard detail on a bridge construction crew, and something that under normal circumstances would never have crossed his desk, save for one small detail that made it worthy of his personal attention.

It was from Wave.

As one of Konoha’s vassal states, Minato knew that Wave was required to have a shinobi force sufficient for peacekeeping and law enforcement, and thus it should have been handled by local shinobi, which had gotten it flagged as probably fraudulent during initial processing and kicked up to a superior, who had immediately realized the political implications of the application and the situation in Wave and brought it directly to him.

Three months ago Wave had gone completely dark, no trade or information coming out of the small country, save for a monthly message from their headsman that the situation was under control and no intervention was needed, and there were no hidden distress codes in the letters.

Bull.

Both Minato and Shoko – the Fire Daimyo – knew something had gone horribly wrong in their vassal, but due to the treaty Konoha could not intervene unless communications had ceased or the Wave Headsman requested help, with the exception being if they had proof of the Headsman being compromised or replaced. Unfortunately, close examinations of the headsman’s letters had determined that either the man was writing them of his own free will or it was a master forger with access to Wave’s code books. So aside from posting a close watch on the shore nearest to Wave, Konoha couldn’t do anything.

At least, that was true until this mission came along.

As they would be contracted to one of Wave’s citizens, it meant that Minato would be able to insert a team into Wave without political repercussions, and if they “happened” to discover evidence that would allow authorization of an intervention task force… well no one could blame Fire Country or Konoha for looking after the well being of their vassals, could they?

Looking up Minato gave the nervous man who had brought the mission to his attention a smile.

“You were correct to bring this to my attention, thank you.”

The man relaxed in relief, discretely exhaling.

“Now,” Minato continued, handing the mission back to him, “I need you to add in a clause that when the threat rank goes above C the penalties will be taken from the tolls on the bridge and get the applicant to sign it. Yukiji-san,” His petite brown-haired assistant perked up, “give the man double pay for this month as a reward.”

“At once, Hokage-sama,” they chorused, bowed, and left.

Minato leaned back in thought. Much as he’d like to, he couldn’t assign a team of jounin to a supposed C-rank, that would tip off whoever’s responsible for the situation in Wave. He needed them to be merely suspicious, not bugging out and/or going to ground. So. He needed a team that could pass as adequate for a C-rank, yet able to escalate to match whatever the threat actually was. One team immediately came to mind and he smirked. Yes, their abilities fit the requirements near perfectly, and the other teams would be quite happy to have them out of the city for a few weeks.

“Akane,” he said, and his old companion looked up from the fiction book she was reading in the large comfy basket he’d commissioned specifically for her, “I need you to find Team Seven, I have a mission for them.”

She nodded, marked her place with a lightly chewed bookmark, and got up to leave as Minato pulled a clean sheet of paper in front of him and began to pen a letter to Shoko, requesting samurai and administrators to join the taskforce of jounin he was planning to marshal on the shore opposite Wave, ready to secure the nation the moment Kakashi had acquired the evidence.

* * *

Kakashi led his genin into Minato’s office after Akane, quite curious as to what his old sensei had for them. He hadn’t been personally assigned a mission since… it had to be before he joined the Guard. And now Minato had a mission specifically him _and_ his team, which meant that this was probably going to be interesting in all the wrong ways.

“Good morning, sensei.”

“Greetings, Hokage-sama.”

“G-good d-day, H-hokage-s-sama.”

“Hi, Tou-chan!”

“Team Seven,” Minato acknowledged, waiting for them to arrange themselves in front of his desk before continuing, “The mission I have for you is a rather simple one. You need to guard the bridge builder Tazuna on his way back to Wave and once there you are to guard him, the bridge he is building, and the construction crew. Your remit allows for retaliatory attacks, but not preemptive ones. Threat is officially C-rank however it is believed to increase one if not two ranks and that has been compensated for in the contract. Naruto, as the Kyuubi no Chosen, and thus not directly under my command, will you and Kurama accept this mission?”

There was a pause before Kurama stepped out of Naruto’s shadow and said

“We do.”

Minato relaxed somewhat and nodded.

“Thank you. Also, when you arrive at Wave Kakashi will have additional duties that will likely take him away from the bridge for extended periods. I recommend maintaining plausible deniability during the mission, as I am uncertain how it will interact with Chosen Neutrality.”

“But I can be told afterwards, right?” Naruto asked.

“Yes, it won’t be classified. Further questions? …Tazuna will meet you at the main gate by nine o-clock tomorrow morning, dismissed. Kakashi, stay behind for your orders.”

Minato waited until the rest of Team Seven left his office.

“You are aware of the situation in Wave?” he checked.

Kakashi nodded.

“I have a taskforce marshaling by the bridge this Tazuna is building. Find me the casus belli I need.”

* * *

Naruto had had a very uneasy night before his first out of city mission. After picking up the next generation of the prototype comms, which were much more discrete (and Naruto’s was customized for use with vulpine ears) Team Seven had been released to go back to their homes to pack. Thankfully, between Kaa-chan and Kurama went mostly smoothly. Mostly.

“No, Naruto, you cannot pack a bunch of ramen for your food. Even if you could manage the necessary heat with a jutsu, where will you find the water?”

“Aw.”

And

“Naruto, where’s your sleeping bag?”

“Don’t need it. I can just turn into a fox if I get cold, and a simple waterproof blanket is good enough against the weather and far less bulky.”

And

“Naruto, why does your face look like your namesake?”

“I’m adjusting to the sensitivity of my ears, nose, and eyes, just like Tou-chan used to do before going on missions.”

Nine o’clock the next day found Naruto waiting at the main gate of Konoha’s outermost ring of walls in standard brown and green shinobi mission garb with four-millimeter-thick high-hardness carbon steel inserts stitched into the interior of the fabric over his chest and forearms and his pack strapped to his back and trying to ignore the double takes of the civilians and even shinobi at his vulpine head, the rest of his body still human. The only reason he wasn’t being crowded was because Kurama, currently as large as a warhorse and in his nine-tails form, was lounging around his feet and would glare at anyone approaching him. Sasuke stood next to Naruto in identical garb, and Hinata was jogging towards them from down the street, also dressed in mission gear. Team Seven nodded to each other in greeting, but didn’t speak.

Ten minutes later they spotted Kakashi forcibly leading a man who had to be their client and who had either already started drinking despite the early hour of the day or was still somewhat drunk from the previous night. They were nearly to them when Tazuna abruptly startled.

“An oni!” he cried with shock, gaze locked on Naruto, only to yelp as his ass sprouted several senbon, curtsey of shinobi who overheard and decided to express their displeasure.

“Tazuna, meet Team Seven,” Kakashi said guilelessly, though his hand on Tazuna’s arm tightened to the point the old man was wincing in pain.

“This bunch of kids are shinobi?” he asked incredulously, “Even the – even him?”

Kakashi hummed.

“May I introduce Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, _the Kyuubi no Chosen_, and,”

Kurama stood, growing to ten feet tall at the shoulder so he could properly loom and gave Tazuna a smile that quite deliberately showed off all of his fangs. Tazuna paled, though he managed to not piss himself like many a terrified civilian had in the past upon seeing the Bijuu.

“Kurama, _the Kyuubi no Kitsune._”

“**Naruto is quite precious to me,**” Kurama rumbled, mock pleasantly, “**So I suggest you do not insult him in my presence if you wish to remain intact.”**

Tazuna, white faced and trembling, jerkily nodded. There was a long moment of silence, everyone nearby watching the scene with baited breath.

“Why are we still standing here? We’re wasting daylight,” Kakashi said cheerfully, once more dragging the client into motion.

Kurama shrunk himself into the more manageable size of an exceptionally large dog and Team Seven, albeit reluctantly, fell into position around Tazuna as they left Konoha.

* * *

The group was nearly at the coast when they encountered trouble. Their first inkling was when Naruto started sniffing the air.

“Kurama, you smell that?” he asked, the group slowing to a halt.

The ancient fox sniffed as well before answering

“It’s certainly not a natural scent, and also not related to any perfumes. I suspect it’s a poison of some kind. Probably being used by the two human siblings I smell.”

“Byakugan,” Hinata announced, continuing a minute later “I’m not seeing anyone nearby. Whoever you’re smelling, the wind’s carrying it a ways from its source.”

Reassured, the group started moving again, though on high alert. An hour later they rounded a bend in the road and paused at the sight of a large puddle in front of them.

“Sensei,” Sasuke asked slowly, “When was the last time it rained?”

There was a moment of tranquil stillness, with Team Seven’s hands drifting towards their weapons or preparing to make hand seals, and then a pair of shinobi burst out of the puddle towards them. Naruto’s instinctive rasengan went too low and blasted a crater into the road, tripping up the shinobi on the left and causing him to release the chain the pair was holding. Half a second later Kakashi shunshined in front of the other, White Fang in hand and slashing. The shinobi tried to block with his clawed gauntlet, only for the forearm to disintegrate with a flash and crack of thunder upon contact with the chakra blade as the jutsu Kakashi had charged it with triggered.

“Meizu!” The other shinobi cried as Meizu screamed in agony.

Kurama grew to the size of a two-story house and flooded the area with his power and killing intent, causing both shinobi to freeze in terror and Tazuna to piss himself.

**“Unless you wish to be eaten, I suggest you surrender.”**

“We surrender,” the pair immediately yelled.

**“…Pity, I was hoping for a snack…”**

Ten minutes later Kakashi finished tying the pair to a tree having forced them unconscious with a medical jutsu he knew, another having forced Miezu’s stump to seal over preventing further blood loss.

“Kurama, can you send out a chakra flare?” Kakashi asked as he nailed a scrap of paper saying that they had attacked Team Seven and had surrendered, signed with his signature scarecrow mark, to the tree over the Demon Brothers of the Mist, with their equipment piled a ways away. Interestingly neither had their Kiri hitae-ates on them, but Kakashi had recognized them from the Bingo Book anyways.

Kurama obliged, sending up a blast of chakra that could easily be felt for several dozen kilometers around (and would have caused Tazuna to piss himself again if there had been anything left in his bladder), hanging in the air like a star shell. Satisfied that the area would soon be swarming with shinobi and samurai from nearby outposts and towns Team Seven continued on towards Wave.

“By the way, Tazuna,” Kakashi said amicably, “the mission’s threat rank has gone up to B.”

There was a long pause before Tazuna hesitantly spoke

“That’s it? No threats to abandon the mission, just ‘threat rank is now B’?”

“Maa, we knew you were lying about the threat rank before you were half way finished with your application, and we modified the contract accordingly.”

He gave the old civilian an eye smile.

“You did read the modified contract before signing it, yes?”

Tazuna’s worried scrabbling for the contract caused the shinobi and Bijuu to trade discrete smirks and grins. The old man mumbled to himself as he read the contract, inadvertently slowing until Sasuke put his hand in the small of his back to keep him moving. Several minutes later he lowered the contract with a sigh of relief.

“If I had known bridge tolls were a valid payment option I wouldn’t have tried to give such a low threat rank mission,” he admitted.

“So, what’s your estimate of the actual threat?” Kakashi asked.

Tazuna thought for a long moment.

“…A, I think.”

Team Seven stopped and looked at him.

“A-rank? You do realize just how much of a difference there is between C and A? If we hadn’t seen though you that could have meant us sending a team to their deaths.”

Tazuna winced and nodded, shame faced. Kakashi shook his head in disgust.

“So. A-rank. Explain.”

“Six months ago a shipping tycoon by the name of Gato showed up in Wave. At the time, the only thing notable about him was that he had a long term bodyguard contract with several Kiri nin, and while that did make us suspicious it wasn’t illegal. But then his business rivals started dying in what we thought at the time as tragic accidents or natural causes but in hindsight probably were anything but. Three months ago Headsman Seikan ordered an investigation into Gato’s business, though I don’t know why. The next day Gato stormed the town with two or three hundred mercenaries and several dozen shinobi. No one’s seen the Headsman since and any resistance has been rather brutally put down.”

“These shinobi,” Kakashi said, “Describe them.”

“Not sure what you want me to say,” Tazuna shrugged, “I don’t know how to tell a skilled shinobi from a bad one. Supposedly they’re all missing nin, but…”

“You suspect Kiri.”

“We suspect Kiri. No proof though. At least, no one still living has any.”

* * *

Zabuza carefully used a magnification jutsu to see the occupants of the small boat heading towards the shore, the clear night giving him plenty of moonlight to see by. As they expected once they realized that Tazuna had given them the slip the bridge builder was returning with shinobi, but who? Focusing on the boat he counted the silhouettes of three children and one adult in addition to the expected bridge builder.

Had the Hokage sent a genin team? Had he lost his mind?

Increasing the magnification he tried to identify the Konoha shinobi. The adult had a mask over the lower half of his face and his hair was either white or blonde that was being bleached by the moonlight. Zabuza eyed the man considering. He suspected that was Hatake Kakashi, though he wasn’t certain due to the lack of light. But what was the Fox’s Hound doing with genin?

One of the genin shifted in a way that didn’t look quite right, drawing Zabuza’s attention and making him stare. One of the genin had a vulpine head, and was nosing the air as if he was sniffing. The Swordsman of Kiri blinked hard, but despite his prayers the shinobi’s head stayed vulpine-shaped. He was already getting a sinking feeling when a fox the size of a ninken abruptly sat up from where it had been concealed in the bottom of the boat and they both looked in his general direction. Dropping the jutsu in horror Zabuza turned and fled inland as fast as he could, swearing under his breath with a slightly hysterical note in his voice.

The fuck did Gato _do_ that drew the Kyuubi no Kitsune’s attention to Wave?


	5. Chapter 5

Gato was finishing an early-morning meeting, having just risen from bed, when Zabuza abruptly burst into the room, more than a little wide eyed.

“Zabuza,” Gato snapped, “What have I – “

“The Kyuubi no Kitsune just made landfall,” the shinobi interrupted, voice laced with fear.

There was a moment of dead silence as everyone in the room stared at the Swordsman of the Mist in horror. None of them considered that it might be a joke, no one would joke about that. Then everyone began talking at once.

“Silence!” Gato bellowed.

“Gato-san,” one of his lieutenants demanded, terrified, “What did you do to draw that thing’s attention?”

“Nothing other than business as usual,” he snapped.

“Kiri is pulling out,” Zabuza declared, “I recommend you do the same. Samehada is back in Kiri and there’s no way for the Mizukage to get here in time. If this was one of the lesser Bijuu, the Sanbi, Nibi, or Ichibi, we might have had a chance at fighting it off, but the Kyuubi?” He shook his head. “No.”

Everyone nodded, even Gato, none protesting at abandoning their investment in Wave.

“All of the major ships are currently at sea,” Gato said, scowling as he thought, “We don’t have the capacity to transport all of your shinobi off the island, much less everyone else, not even if we conscripted every seaworthy vessel on the island, which we mostly already have. We’ll have to wait for the next convoy to arrive, which should be in a week’s time, if they’re not delayed by bad weather, which is likely at this time of the year. Once they arrive it’ll take roughly a day to get everyone and everything loaded… Call it two weeks that we need.” He looked at Zabuza. “Can you delay it that long?”

“We’ll find out.”

* * *

Tsunami once more found herself staring at Kaiza’s face in their family photo when she heard the door to their home open.

“Tsunami-kun, Inari-kun, I’m back,” she heard her Tou-san call, “And I brought guests.”

Smoothing her kimono and checking to make sure she didn’t have any stray hair floating around she entered the living area.

“Greetings, shinobi-san,” she said, giving a light bow to the tall white-haired man with a Konoha hitae-ate, then her eyes widened as she spotted the child with the vulpine head and fox hitae-ate and the impossibly large orange furred fox at his side.

She bowed low

“Welcome to my family’s humble home, Chosen-sama, Kyuubi-sama.”

“That is a much nicer greeting than the one your father gave us, Tsunami-san,” the Kyuubi said.

“He was drunk and called me an oni,” the Chosen complained.

Straightening she whipped out the thick wooden ladle she carried for self-defense and cracked tou-san across the side of the head. He winced and rubbed the impact, but accepted it, as he should. Turning back to her now amused group of visitors she bowed as low as she could without toppling.

“I apologize greatly for the insult, Chosen-sama.”

“Apology accepted,” he said formally then beamed in a manner that made her certain that if he had a tail, it’d be wagging, “Hi, I’m Uzumaki Naruto!”

“Hatake Kakashi,” the adult said.

“H-hyuuga Hinata.”

“Uchiha Sasuke.”

“A pleasure to meet you all,” Tsunami said, “It’s a relief to know that Konoha is willing to honor its obligations to its vassals.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Hatake said blithely, “We’re only here because we have a guard contract with Tazuna to protect him and his bridge against bandits. The Kyuubi no Kitsune is only tagging along because his Chosen is still new to the whole business of being a shinobi and this is supposed to provide good field experience for him.”

Tsunami stared at him in confusion before glancing at Kyuubi-sama. Who gave her a discrete wink.

Ah.

Restraining a smirk she responded

“Indeed? Well, _unfortunately_ Wave is currently overrun, and not metaphorically, by thugs and shinobi who claim to not belong to any village. They have a tendency to steal from people and,” she swallowed as she remembered Kaiza’s brutal execution, “_make examples_ of people willing to stand up to them. By any reasonable definition, they would indeed be classified as bandits and likely will indeed interfere with your mission. Perhaps it might be wise for a preemptive strike?”

“Sadly, banditry suppression missions are the prerogative of local shinobi forces, as according to the treaty between Fire and Wave. If the local situation really is so bad, the Headsman should have requested help from Konoha rather than repeatedly sending messages stating that everything was under control. Did you know that Tazuna was the first person to successfully make it to Konoha from Wave in over three months? We were so worried.”

Tsunami mostly dropped the act, frowning.

“That’s… concerning. No one has seen the Headsman since Gato’s thugs stormed his residence months ago. Actually, it’s an open question as to whether he’s still alive.”

“Then I would be most remiss in my duties as a shinobi of Konoha if I did not check on the well being of the leader of Fire’s vassal.”

The pair looked at each other for a long moment, understanding passing between them.

“Is anyone ready for lunch?” she asked, spinning on her heel to head to the kitchen, “I don’t have much, I’m afraid.”

“How much is not much?” Kyuubi-sama asked.

“It’ll be tight, but I should have enough rice left to last for the rest of the month.”

“In that case I’m going to take Naruto hunting. There’s no reason for us to put unnecessary strain on your supplies. It’ll also allow us to scout the terrain at the same time.”

Tsunami stared in shock as Uzumaki-sama melted into the form of a golden fox and pranced back to the door, tail wagging slowly.

“We’ll be back in a few hours, sensei,” he said, and wasn’t that a shock to hear a human voice coming from a fox, “If we find anything interesting I’ll send a clone back.”

“Don’t take too long,” Hatake replied.

“We won’t,” Kyuubi answered, shrinking himself down to match his Chosen’s size as Uzumaki reared back and used a paw to slide open the door enough for him to squeeze through, Kyuubi following and shutting the door behind them. Moments later there was the distant sound of thunder despite the cloudless day.

“That was a lighting jutsu,” Hatake noted.

Tsunami grimaced.

“I hope those bandit shinobi didn’t kill anyone this time.”

* * *

Gato glared at the wreck of his personal yacht, sunk at harbor, only the superstructure still above the waves. There had only been a handful of ocean capable ships on the island to start with, and now some _asshole_ was going around and sinking them, just when he needed them the most! His eye twitched as another peal of thunder echoed over the island, heralding the scuttling of another ship. Several minutes later one of his shinobi surfaced from inspecting the damage.

“Well?” he demanded.

“There’s a two, two-and-a-half meter hole stretching from the main deck down through the keel,” His shinobi reported, “she could be refloated and repaired, but that’s a several week process in a drydock.”

Gato growled and turned to Zabuza, who was standing next to him with his famed sword slung over one shoulder.

“This has to be the work of that Kumo shinobi that’s been hanging around for the past week,” he snarled, “kill him.”

There was another peal of thunder.

* * *

Naruto carefully peered through the leaves of a fern and shrub at the rabbit he had spent the past hour tracking, having carefully positioned himself downwind and behind it. It had been months since he had last gone on a hunt, the only real difference being that Kin and Dai weren’t hunting with him this time. Kurama had dismissed his avatar and Naruto could feel him watching though his eyes, both of them thrumming with excitement and tension. Crouching slightly, he spread his hind toes to better brace against the ground. With a silent count of three he pounced, the rustle of leaves the only noise made. The rabbit’s head came up and immediately tried to bound away, but Naruto already had accelerated and had too much speed, resulting in the rabbit being airborne when his jaws closed on its neck. Blood gushing onto his tongue he shook his head violently and with a half-heard half-felt pop the rabbit went limp.

Polite applause caused him to turn in surprise, the rabbit swaying heavily from his jaws, to see a shinobi with half white half green hair and a purple diamond over the right side of his face approaching.

“An excellent hunt, Chosen-sama,” he said.

A flicker of crimson and Kurama towered protectively over Naruto, who stood behind Kurama’s forelegs and with a good foot of clearance between the top of Naruto’s back and the bottom of Kurama’s belly, nine tails waving behind him.

“And who,” the Bijuu growled, “are you?”

“Peace, Kurama-sama,” the shinobi said, spreading his empty hands, “I mean neither you nor your Chosen any harm. I am Blue B of Kumo, sent by A the Fourth to investigate the situation in Wave.”

“And why would the Raikage involve himself in one of Konoha’s vassals?”

“The trade disruptions caused by the situation here has triggered a fairly nasty recession back in Lightning and the Raikage wants to know whose ass to kick. It’s good to see that Konoha is finally taking action, I was getting worried that Kumo would have to do so.”

Gently dropping the rabbit Naruto asked

“I don’t understand. How does what’s going on in Wave have any effect on Lightning’s economy?”

“Because there are only two ports of significant size along Fire’s western coastline, the city up along the border with Hot Water and Wave itself, and the vast majority of civilian ships do not have the range to reach the northern city if they are coming or going through the straights between the mainland and Nagi Island, which means all sea-borne trade between the northern and southern halves of the continent go through Wave. The only alternative ports are Uzu Island, which is still uninhabited and likely to remain so as it’s still very much unstable, or try your luck with one of the ports on Water’s islands, but that is just begging to be preyed on by Kiri’s pirates and they still haven’t recovered from the Uzushio Tsunami anyway. Any major disruption in Wave thus causes significant disruptions to the oceanic trade route, and the entire _continent_ feels the economic sting.”

“I had no idea that Wave was so important,” Naruto said quietly.

“Few do. Which is why it’s in my best interests to help you restore order here and wipe out these marauders. Your arrival spooked them and they’re making preparations to flee, but I’ve delayed them by sinking the few sea worthy vessels currently docked here. You have a week until the next convoy of trade ships arrives, and if you haven’t dealt with the situation by then they _will_ be hijacked and Gato’s men and shinobi will be able to escape to Kiri.”

“Naruto isn’t ready for the level of combat you are implying yet,” Kurama said.

‘That, is not _my_ problem,” B responded, pulling out a rather thick folder, “In any case here is a copy of my notes on the situation here as well as the major players and shinobi.”

Naruto sidestepped out from under Kurama and retook human form, accepting the folder.

“Thank you, B-san,” he said politely, “but why are you giving me this rather than Kakashi-sensei?”

B looked amused.

“I’m sorry, why would you think that I’d be allowed to consort with a shinobi of a foreign power on a highly classified mission, especially since I’m not supposed to be here in the first place? Indeed, it’s your Chosen Neutrality that’s even letting me do this much, and between this and my previous actions I’ve stretched my remit to the breaking point. I have no need to know what you’re planning to do with these files, nor do I want to know, so please don’t tell me.”

“Thank you for your assistance, B-san,” Kurama rumbled.

“My pleasure, Kurama-sama. If you excuse me, it’s time for me to start heading back to Kumo.”

“Um, how?” Naruto asked, “You sank everything seaworthy, didn’t you?”

“I have sufficient stamina to water walk to Uzu, and from there I can hop up the Paradise Isles back to Lighting, but thank you for your concern. Farewell.”

B turned and quickly vanished into the forest. Naruto watched him go for a moment before summoning a shadow clone and handing the folder to him, freeing his hands to retrieve the rabbit and the group began to head back to Tazuna’s house. Several minutes later Naruto had a thought and summoned several more clones who shapeshifted into fox form and dispersed to hunt down more prey to supplement Tsunami’s food supplies.

* * *

Kakashi was lounging on top of the client’s house, keeping watch, when he spotted Naruto and Kurama returning with a rabbit, along with a clone that had a folder Naruto definitely hadn’t left with. Jumping off the roof he landed lightly in front of his genin.

“What’s in the folder?” He asked.

“I’m not too sure,” Naruto replied, “A Blue B of Kumo gave it to me. Do you know of him?”

Kakashi went rigid.

“Yes. It would not be incorrect to describe him as Kumo’s counterpart to me. Very powerful, very skilled, and extremely loyal to their kage, has been known to act as the Raikage’s voice and hand in sensitive situations, like I used to do before I took on you lot. Where did you meet him?”

Naruto summarized his meeting with the Kumo nin, the clone handing Kakashi the folder and dispelling.

“… and then he said that he was heading back to Kumo and left.”

Kakashi frowned as he leafed through the folder.

“If it helps,” Kurama added, “I think that Blue B wanted you to have that, but couldn’t give it to you directly, hence him seeking us out and using ludicrous amounts of plausible deniability.”

There was a long moment of silence as the adult shinobi continued to look though the folder.

“Sensei?” Naruto asked, causing Kakashi to look up, “Do you need anything from me? ‘Cause I was going to see if Tsunami-san would help me make rabbit stew.”

Distracted he waved the pair off and they proceeded into the house.

“Tsunami-san,” he heard Naruto call with his keen ears, “I caught a rabbit, can you please help me cook it?”

“Only if you’re willing to share with everyone,” she replied.

“That’s fine, I’ve got several clones still out hunting for more prey.”

Kakashi paused as he abruptly remembered the first time Naruto had caught a rabbit. He had been ten at the time, and had proudly brought his prize back to the Uzumaki Manor, still in fox form and the rabbit in his jaws, much to the disgust of his sister and exasperation of his mother, though both Minato and Akane, as well as Kin and Dai, had been very pleased with him. At the time, Kakashi had been reminded of a cat proudly presenting its owner with a dead rat. And now a similar situation was occurring with Tsunami, who was not aware of much less used to the eccentricities of the Uzumaki and Namikaze families.

This should be amusing.

“Naruto-san, why are there teeth marks on the rabbit’s neck?”

“I told you, I hunted it.”

“As the fox you left as?” Tsunami’s tone was incredulous.

“Yes…” And there was Naruto’s ‘I’m confused as to why you’re confused’ tone.

“…I can’t believe I’m asking this with all seriousness, but were you raised by foxes?”

“Four of them!” Naruto answered proudly, “Though it might be more accurate to say I was raised _alongside_ Kin and Dai, they’re kitsunes.”

“Minato helped,” Kurama commented, “Though admittedly he doesn’t spend anywhere near as much time as a fox as he did before he took the Hokage’s hat.”

Kakashi grinned at the long pause, regretting that he couldn’t see Tsunami’s face. He was sure it was priceless.

“…So what were you planning on making?” Tsunami asked with a ‘I’m not drunk enough for this conversation’ tone.

“I was thinking a stew…”

Kakashi tuned them out, focusing on Blue B’s information. He’d have to confirm its accuracy, but if it was correct, this was _exactly_ what Minato needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to over exposure to a certain grumpy fox, Minato vastly underestimates just how terrifying it is to have a “Suddenly Bijuu” event. Imagine – you’re happily going about your evil plan, beating, tormenting, robbing, and killing, and suddenly a physical god turns up and takes exception to you. You can’t fight, it’s too powerful (and even if you somehow win all you’ll do is draw the undivided attention of the other eight), you can’t run, its size makes it one of the fastest things out there, you can’t hide… all you can really do is, to quote The Mighty Jingles, “bend over, grab your ankles, and kiss your ass goodbye”, especially since the Bijuu have been known to have competitions between themselves as to who can capture/kill the most criminals within a set time for sport. Merely having one of the Bijuu pass though an area has been known to cause (smarter) criminals to surrender themselves rather than risk that the Bijuu is bored enough to entertain itself by hunting them.
> 
> Here's the map I'm using, it'll help with Blue B's explanation:  
https://www.deviantart.com/mcskeleton/art/Naruto-World-Map-532687636
> 
> Poor, poor, Tsunami, having to deal with Naruto's distinctly vulpine mentality.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something that I think I should point out in case anyone missed it:  
In this timeline Zabuza and Haku are both very loyal to Kiri, and as one of the Two Swordsmen Zabuza is second only to the Mizukage in influence.

It took three days for Kakashi to verify enough of B’s information to be confident that the rest was also true, at which point he had his pack deliver the information back to Konoha, Pakkun carrying the storage scroll with the rest escorting him. The next day Pakkun summoned himself to Kakashi’s side.

“Message delivered, Boss,” he said, exhausted, “and here’s his reply.”

He dropped a storage seal at Kakashi’s feet (Kakashi idly noted it was the same one he had originally sent, identified by the small smidge of rabbit blood on the corner) and dispelled himself. Picking up the scroll Kakashi unsealed Minato’s message and read it twice. Once he was sure that he had memorized it he set it on fire with a minor jutsu and frowned at nothing, thinking. Minato did indeed have the justification to launch what could best be described as a counter invasion force, but there had been a complication. The intervention force was unable to locate anywhere near enough boats to ferry them across the straights, and while they could in theory water-walk to Wave, that would leave the force exhausted and if the “Not Kiri, Honest” shinobi decided to contest the landing – which they certainly would, Zabuza was not a fool – they would inflict casualties far out of proportion to their strength.

So, their best option was waiting for the bridge, which admittedly was nearly complete, to be finished and use that as the route to get the force into Wave. Minato was already sending several Chakra Engineers to accelerate the construction of the mainland side of the bridge, but he wanted Kakashi to accelerate the Wave half of the bridge if possible. Minato suggested two paths to do so, the first having Naruto spawn a horde of shadow clones and have them assist the civilian workers – which he had already done, having started on the first day – and telling the civilians about the intervention force waiting on the completion of the bridge to relieve Wave. That went against Kakashi’s instincts, but Minato correctly pointed out that all the major players knew that the force was coming, so they lost nothing in revealing it and informing the civilians would immeasurably increase morale. Minato believed that if the civilians knew that their salvation waited on the other end of the bridge, they would be highly motivated to complete the bridge as fast as possible.

Kakashi was skeptical, but acknowledged that he barely understood his fellow shinobi and had even less understanding of civilian mindsets, so he was willing to defer to his sensei’s judgment. Sensei also recommended that the information be given as part of a motivational speech to maximize the moral boosting effect, but like _hell_ was Kakashi doing _that_.

…Then again, whoever said that it had to be _him_ that did the speech?

* * *

Tazuna looked over his motley collection of workers that he had ordered to gather before the morning work shift began.

“So,” he began, projecting his voice so everyone could hear, “We all know that Fire is going to send a force here to liberate Wave eventually. And curtesy of Hatake-san, the senior shinobi, I have news to pass onto you as he is too busy making life miserable for Gato and his men to be here himself. The good news is that there is a large force of shinobi sent by the Hokage to retake Wave on the shore of the mainland right now.” A bunch of hopeful whispers broke out. “The bad news is that they can’t find enough boats to force a landing, so instead they plan to come by the bridge. That means the sooner the bridge is completed, the sooner Wave will be freed.” There were several cheers and a lot of beaming smiles. “Let’s get to work!”

* * *

Zabuza stood on Wave’s shore looking at the massive bridge reaching towards the mainland in the distance. The workers had started pulling twenty-four-hour work shifts a few days ago, and they were very noticeably _not complaining_. That meant they were up to something, but they were being very cagy about discussing it around town. There had been some discussion as to whether to kidnap one of the workers and interrogate them for information, but given the way the Kyuubi and its Chosen had been guarding the bridge they would definitely react to that and that was not a fight any of them wanted if it could be avoided. Besides, given the rapidly increasing undercurrent of defiance among the villagers he could guess.

Konoha was coming, and probably via the bridge instead of trying to force a landing.

They were running out of time. The only good news was that he was expecting the next trade convoy to show up at any time, so with any luck he and his shinobi would be long gone by the time the bridge was completed. Once more he surveyed the bridge, trying to find a way to sabotage the construction to buy more time, but the thing was literally swarming with the Chosen’s shadow clones at all hours of the day and night now, and all it would take is for one of them to spot him and dispel to alert the Chosen who would in turn alert the Kyuubi and there’s no way he’d be able to get away before the Bijuu ran him down.

He let out a frustrated sigh and glared ineffectually at the bridge.

One of Haku’s ice mirrors formed next to him and his apprentice stepped out.

“Zabuza-sama, our lookouts report sails on the southern horizon.”

* * *

Jinnouchi Sen, captain of the Kinrin Maru, lead ship in the convoy coming from Wind and ultimately bound for Lightning, eyed the slowly approaching coastline of Wave with trepidation. He had been hearing increasingly dire rumors about what was happening in the small yet incredibly important country over the past few months. Thankfully his last stop had been just before things had gone to shit by all accounts and he had delayed setting off as long as he could in the hope that things would resolve themselves. According to the last convoy he had passed in the opposite direction, that hadn’t happened.

Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as a nine tailed fox the size of a small mountain suddenly leapt from the island to land on top of the water and begin trotting towards the convoy as though the sea was solid ground. He heard several of his sailors curse vividly and fully agreed with them.

He’d heard the stories about how large the Kyuubi no Kitsune could be, but stories didn’t, couldn’t, truly drive home just how impossibly large the Bijuu were. That they could be sealed inside of humans boggled the mind.

**“Wave has been overrun by pirates,”** the Kyuubi said once he was a few hundred meters away, his booming voice easily carrying over the convoy, **“As the ships they came on have been sunk and Konoha is marshaling to kick them out they will attempt to board you and take over your ships to escape Wave. To prevent this you will divert to the mainland. I will escort you to make sure they don’t try anything.”**

Okay then. That was… actually a bit of a relief. Sen hadn’t realized just how much he had been dreading Wave until now. Glancing up at the wind pennant on the top of the main mast he frowned, then cupped his hands around his mouth and called back

“Wind is blowing in the wrong direction for sails and it’s too far for oars. How are we supposed to get there?”

The Kyuubi looked at him for a moment then lashed a tail. Wind came slamming out of the west, almost dangerously strong, and Sen was pleased to see his crew immediately start to tack with the wind without him needing to give orders, and he could see the rest of the convoy follow suit.

* * *

The meeting between Gato, Zabuza, and the senior members of their men was bleak. They had all watched the Kyuubi intercept and divert their last chance of escaping Wave and Konoha’s inevitable retribution. Morale was incredibly low.

“So…” Gato finally said, defeated, “now what do we do?”

There was a long pause before Zabuza finally spoke.

“…I can only see two options. Either we fortify ourselves here and make Konoha pay in blood for every inch they take… or we try to force the bridge. Surrender isn’t an option. Konoha will execute any who do, likely after torturing them for any scrap of information first.”

“Why would we want to take the bridge? Wouldn’t that just leave us stranded in Fire?” One of Gato’s lieutenants asked, to nods from most people.

“The Kyuubi redirected the convoy to the mainland. If we manage to get across the bridge we can find the convoy and take it over there. One thing we’ve got going for us, really the only thing we’ve got going for us, is that they won’t be expecting it. So, should we stay and fight or flee across the bridge?”

“Bridge.” Nearly everyone chorused.

Zabuza nodded.

“Okay, let’s start with the details.”

On the other side of a slightly open window, a large dog lay on the ground, unnoticed by all thanks to the series of seals stitched onto his jacket that rendered him all but undetectable. When the meeting wound down he slipped into an alley, checked to make sure no one was looking just in case, and dispelled himself.

* * *

It was the night after the bridge had been linked to its other half when several hundred men quietly slipped onto it. The builders were long gone, off celebrating, but at the same time they kept a watchful eye out for any stragglers. The last thing they needed was someone raising the alarm.

They had just reached the wooden hoarding and scaffolding connecting the two halves of the bridge when they felt the Kyuubi’s chakra appear at the Wave end of the bridge, and start heading towards them.

“Shit,” Zabuza quietly cursed, then elaborated for the civilians, “The Kyuubi has realized that we’re leaving, move!”

They took off towards the end of the bridge at a jog, the civilian mercenaries clanking far too nosily for Zabuza’s peace of mind. If there was any sort of watch at the end of the bridge…

“Haku, take a squad and eliminate any guards at the end of the bridge.”

“At once, Zabuza-sama!”

Zabuza watched his apprentice sprint away into the night, keenly aware that the Kyuubi was steadily gaining behind them.

They just reached the end of the bridge when a dozen fireworks abruptly screamed skyward and exploded into star shells, the sudden light easily as bright as the noon sun in summer, if not more so, causing screams and curses as Zabuza's and Gato’s men were blinded.

Using chakra to force his eyes to adjust to the light – which made it hurt even more, but he could handle the pain – Zabuza took in the scene. A few meters in front of the end of the bridge Haku and his squad lay, each with several senbon sticking out of them and twitching occasionally.

_Neurotoxin_, Zabuza realized, _fast acting too, if Haku was unable to get a warning out. Paralysis or lethal?_

Dismissing the thought – he would worry about Haku _later_ – he looked further along the road just in time to see several dozen samurai draw their bows back, the spring steel bows revealing that they were chakra wielders for no civilian could draw such monstrosities even a quarter of the way, and the chrysanthemums on their breastplates identifying them as Six Paths Samurai, members of the Fire Daimyo’s personal guard, nearly all of whom were A-rank threats each.

Eyes wide he looked for a way to dodge but he was hemmed in by the bridge and the crowd, and going airborne would be a spectacularly bad idea against foes who were extremely skilled at ranged combat, especially since he was obviously a priority target. His hand went to his sword, he was going to have to try to deflect any arrows coming at him, when the bridge suddenly shook violently, spoiling his stance and balance as well as that of everyone on the bridge, just as the shinobi hidden on either side of the samurai formation revealed their presence with a barrage of terrifyingly powerful jutsus with the samurai releasing their arrows, which looked more like they belonged to light artillery, at the same time.

Screams, blood and death rent the air.

* * *

Kurama, currently the size of a one story house, trotted down the bridge with Kakashi and his ninken pack at his side, making certain that none of the nin or mercenaries tried to flee back into Wave, Naruto and the genin searching Wave to ensure none of the bandits that remained behind – if any did – took the opportunity to attack either the workers or the client.

Judging from the amount of blood and death he could smell the ambush went either exceptionally well or spectacularly badly, and given comparative skills of the forces involved (senior jounin and elite samurai against a bunch of “missing” nin and civilian thugs a name change away from bandits) he strongly doubted the latter. That said, he was surprised by the amount of fighting he see still going on in the illuminated area. He bounded forward to get a better idea as to what was going on.

“WHO’S NEXT?” bellowed the last enemy nin standing, one of Mist’s two remaining legendary swords in his hands, who’s name Kurama couldn’t recall offhand, the bodies of six jounin and three samurai at his feet in various states of dismemberment, a swirling vortex of either blood-stained water or pure blood shielding him from ranged attack.

**“Me.”**

Kurama could taste the Swordsman’s sudden terror as he spun around to look at the Bijuu, causing the ancient fox to grin malevolently.

He started the fight by exhaling a massive gout of flame that flash boiled much of Zabuza’s liquid shield and would have vaporized the shinobi had he not leapt skyward to escape the fire. Rearing backwards Kurama smacked Zabuza earthward with an outstretched paw, Zabuza impaling his sword into the massive paw but losing his grip on the blade. Pulling the sword from his paw and negligently discarding it Kurama strode over to where Zabuza had slammed into the ground, forming a small crater.

**“Huh. Still alive.”**

Zabuza glared up at Kurama weakly, both legs shattered to the point that they looked more like fleshy noodles with shards of bone jutting from them, bleeding from half a dozen wounds that Kurama knew he didn’t inflict.

**“Anyone have something that causes paralysis and an amputation kit?”**

In a single fluid move Zabuza drew a kunai and rammed it into his eye, clearly deciding to not be taken alive.

Kurama sighed.

**“Never mind, he just killed himself. Anyone see where his sword went?”**

“Here, Kyuubi-sama,” said a samurai who had retrieved the massive bloody sword, “With your permission, I’d like to take the blade back to the capital so that our blacksmiths can reverse engineer its self-repair abilities.”

**“Fine, just melt it down when you’re done. It’s getting quite tiring to have that blade keep popping back up after being shattered. If there’s nothing else, I’m going to head back to Naruto.”**

“No, Kyuubi-sama, we can handle things. Good night.”

* * *

A the Fourth the looked at the missive from the Hokage that had just been delivered to his desk and read it again.

_Raikage-dono,_

_While Blue B’s information was very helpful in regards to the now resolved situation on Wave, I would appreciate if you would keep me in the loop if a similar situation ever arises._

_Also, I would like to request a meeting regarding launching a joint pirate suppression campaign, perhaps during the Chuunin Exams?_

_Sincerely,_

_Namikaze Minato, Hokage._

“Someone get me Blue B!” He barked, setting aside the letter in favor of preparing to yell at his uncle for intentionally blowing his cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Haku didn't survive either. 
> 
> There were a few survivors among the shinobi and Gato's mercenaries. As Zabuza said would happen, they were taken to T&I for interrogation and later executed for their actions in Wave.


	7. Chapter 7

Minato read the latest report on the situation at Wave, Team Seven having brought it with them when they returned to Konoha. The Foxfire Bridge had finally been christened, and there was an application to commission kitsune statues flanking each end of the bridge with seals to create ghost flames along the tips of the tails. To do that they’d probably have to tie the seal into senjutsu to allow it to recharge off of natural chakra and…

He forcibly tore himself from the seal he had begun to sketch in the margins. That _wasn’t his job_. Although it couldn’t hurt to make some suggestions – NO. Minato signed his approval on the application and firmly put it in his out tray, flipping it over for good measure to avoid temptation. His fingers kept twitching towards it anyway.

_Next. Item._

This was… interesting. A request from the Snow Resistance for support restoring the heir of their previous leader to Snow’s throne, with the Go date still several weeks off. Minato leaned back in his chair, thinking hard as he eyed the application before picking up T&I’s assessment. He knew without even checking that Konoha was more than capable of facilitating a revolution, the question was whether they _should_. Any mission dealing with a regime change was always politically volatile, and that limited what resources he could commit. For instance, none of the Chosen or Bijuu would get involved in a revolution – directly at least – unless they already had a stake in the situation, like one of the factions had attempted to forcibly conscript them, which admittedly still happened on occasion. The Bijuu had even made a contest as to who could most humiliate the faction responsible, the more amusing the better.

He refocused on T&I’s assessment. Snow’s current leader was by all accounts an all-round horrible human. A kin slayer, war monger, and worse. Definitely someone who was and would continue to destabilize the local region. But, and this was an important but, Minato couldn’t come up with a justification for Konoha to intervene. Ironically, the main hurdle was that Konoha was _too_ powerful, backing a revolution in a foreign nation, no matter how much Minato wanted to, especially when Konoha doesn’t have a stake in the region much less the country in question, would prompt fears among basically everyone that Konoha was coming out of its near century long neutrality as an imperial power. Definitely not something he wanted to have to deal with if it could be avoided.

With a bit of regret he denied the mission, then added a note to be given to the applicant explaining that Konoha was not willing to get involved in a revolution and recommending that they take their request to Kumo.

He put it into his out box and grabbed the next mission slated for his review. A request from Shoko, explicitly asking for assistance from Kurama for… huh. He would never had considered that possible solution. Admittedly the Go date was still a month off but Shoko was correct that he needed a response as soon as possible. He set it aside to take home with him. He’d give it to Naruto then. Speaking of his son, he was wondering how Team Seven was letting everyone know they had returned.

* * *

Kiba stepped out of the bathroom and stopped at the sight of two Akamarus baring their fangs at each other. Both were completely identical, right down to the scent. Most would be unable to tell them apart, but Kiba was an Inuzuka, and Akamaru was his soul-bonded companion. He wasn’t fooled. After a long moment of staring, an unholy grin slowly grew on his face.

“Naruto,” he said, casing both to look at him, “can you create a clone pre-shapeshifted?”

The pup on the right began to wag his tail as a third Akamaru poofed into existence between the two already there.

Kiba had to refrain from cackling.

* * *

“Kurenai-sensei, I’ve got a problem!”

Kurenai looked up from her conversation with Sakura while they waited for the two other members of Team Eight to arrive and stared as Kiba jogged into their corner of the training ground, covered with Akamarus and a pack of them trotting at his heels. There was one on his head, three sticking out of his shirt collar, four out of his jacket collar, six more cradled in his arms, and at least two dozen milling around his feet.

“Akamaru just started duplicating himself this morning and can’t stop!”

As Kiba spoke she saw an Akamaru crawl out of his sleeve and drop to the ground while another fell out of his pants leg.

“Why are you asking me?” She finally asked, “Isn’t that something you should ask a vet?”

“But this is a jutsu problem, not a medical one.”

Kiba’s jacket abruptly bulged outwards over his belly and another six ninken pups tumbled out the bottom.

“What did you and Akamaru do this morning that could have caused this?”

“Nothing!”

Kurenai narrowed her eyes. Kiba had some rather obvious tells, while _he_ may not have done anything, he definitely knew something. Then the Akamaru on Kiba’s head barked and all of the pups turned to look at her. She felt a prickling of apprehension at the sight, especially since the mass of white fur around Kiba’s ankles seemed to have doubled in size when she wasn’t paying attention.

“Sensei,” Kiba said slowly, “did you happen to bring treats today?”

“…Why?”

“Well,” he said as all the Akamarus jumped off of him, “the duplication seems to have made them… hungry.”

The horde of puppies surged towards her, barking in unison, a sonic assault that deafened and she could feel in her bones. She promptly turned and ran, the enormous mass of sentient white fur in pursuit. But, quite horrifyingly, no matter how fast she ran, how much chakra she channeled to her legs, _the puppies were gaining._ Then she felt one leap and latch onto the back of her clothes. Then another onto her pants leg. Desperately, and panicking more than a little bit, she twisted in and attempt to dislodge her passengers, tripped over another puppy, and landed on her back. She had a bit of relief that it didn’t feel like she had landed on any, but that relief was very short lived as the swarm promptly buried her beneath white fur.

She shrieked and flailed (gently, she didn’t want to hurt Akamaru) as the puppies began to dig through her clothes in search of the treats while the rest enthusiastically licked every bit of exposed skin they could reach. She heard the buzz of a swarm of keikaichu nearby, but couldn't quite tell how close due to the noise she nd the puppies were making.

“Sensei!” Shino yelled, “All the puppies have Naruto-san’s chakra! They’re clones!”

There was a moment of absolute stillness then the clone puppies covering her exploded into smoke as Kurenai violently popped them. She sat up, feeling her hair sticking out every which way from slobber and aware that her makeup was horrendously smeared all over her face, and glared at Kiba and Naruto, who was standing next to her student, who were pouting at Shino.

“Uzumaki,” she snarled.

Naruto looked at her, his eyes widened, and all the remaining clones exploded into a smoke cloud.

“_Kai._”

The smoke dispersed to reveal Naruto in the form of a ninken sized fox running like Anko was after him with a gleam in her eye, a nightmare inducing smile, and new “toys” to test his regeneration on. Kiba hadn’t moved, still petulantly pouting at Shino, though she noticed that the real Akamaru was also making a break for it.

She got to her feet and pulled out a bunch of senbon.

“Kiba,” she growled.

Her somewhat slow student finally looked at her and swallowed, paling.

“I think we’ll start today’s training with dodging and evasion.”

She bared her teeth in a feral parody of a smile and bestially snarled

“_Run._”

* * *

“I’m home,” Minato called, hanging his hat and robes on their stand and getting responses from his whole family, plus Kin and Dai, from the kitchen and dining room. Entering he found Naruto recounting his mission as he helped Kushina cook a stir fry, Remon, Kin, Dai, Kurama, and Itachi (who was currently on duty but due to clock off shortly) watching from the dining room.

“…And yes, I know that my presence and my horde of shadow clones were likely crucial from keeping Gato’s men from even trying to mess with the bridge or the client, but it was _so boring_,” Naruto complained as he chopped something, “Everyone made sure I was away from the major fighting as well. Yes, I know that what they had me doing instead was important as well, but I still feel like I could have helped.”

“You don’t sound particularly angry about that,” Kushina noted.

Naruto stilled and got worrying quiet.

“It was two days after the bridge ambush,” he said softly, “I don’t know if he was actually one of Gato’s men or just a local supporter, but some guy came rushing at Tazuna’s house waving a katana and yelling about how it was all Tazuna’s fault and he was going to kill his family to teach a lesson. I threw a kunai like I’d been taught and,” he took a shaky breath, “I hit him in the chest and the guy just _dropped_.”

Kushina immediately knelt and pulled Naruto into a hug, Minato striding across the room to hug them as well. Kin and Dai wrapped themselves around the trio and pressed into them, Minato felt Kurama stir within his seal offer Naruto his own comfort, Remon was hovering looking concerned and unsure how to help.

“It was so easy,” Naruto continued, a hint of a sob in his voice, “I know what would have happened if I let him by, Kakashi-sensei walked me through it, but why is killing people so easy? It shouldn’t be so easy.”

They stood like that for several minutes, listening to the sizzle of the food, then Naruto began to wiggle and they let him go. He immediately stepped back up to the counter and resumed dicing bell peppers for dinner, causing everyone to ignore his minor breakdown and continue as normal.

“So,” Kushina said to break the silence, “Did you meet anyone interesting?”

Naruto perked up.

“I met Tazuna’s daughter, Tsunami. I liked her, she reminds me a lot of you Kaa-chan. When she heard that her tou-san had called me an oni she immediately cracked him across the head with a ladle.”

There was a chorus of chuckles.

“I also met his grandson, Inari.” Naruto frowned. “I… don’t understand him.”

“How so?” Minato asked.

“When Gato killed his adopted tou-san he just… gave up. He blamed his tou-san for getting killed for standing up to Gato rather than try to figure out a way to get vengeance like his kaa-san or ojii-san. He spent much of our time there saying that we were idiots who were doomed to fail and get killed by Gato and that we should give up and go home.”

“And what did you say in response?” Minato asked because he knew that neither Naruto or Kurama would stay quiet with that directed at them.

“We pointed out how Gato was just a civilian, how Kurama is immortal and the most powerful being alive, and that Kakashi-sensei is one of Konoha’s best shinobi, but he just dismissed us and doubled down on how we were going to lose and die. We tried to say that his tou-san wouldn’t want him to be like that, but that just made him angry.” Naruto shrugged. “We tried everything we could think of, but nothing got through. Eventually Kurama lost his temper and verbally ripped him a new one. That got him to stop saying we were going to die at least. After the bridge ambush he seemed stunned, like he hadn’t expected Gato to die. Tsunami managed to get him to sincerely apologize for his behavior before we left, so hopefully our actions managed to get through to him where our words didn’t.”

“Let’s hope so,” Minato agreed before changing the subject, “Also, I’ve got a possible mission for you and Kurama.”

“Already?” Kurama asked from where he was lounging under the dining table.

“Well the Go date is actually still a month off, but Shoko-dono, he’s the client, does need an answer as soon as possible.”

“What for?” Naruto asked. “And why are you asking us rather than Team Seven as a whole?”

“Shoko has been planning on making a canal across the isthmus connecting the continental mainland to the peninsula for awhile but the crisis in Wave has caused him to go ahead with it. Even with chakra construction techniques it would take them years to carve the canal, and the project is flat out non-viable without them. However, a Bijuu could carve most of the canal in a matter of weeks and said canal will be significantly shorter but to being able to go through obstacles that mortals would have to go around.”

“So he wants me to dig a trench?” Kurama asked flatly.

Minato hesitated at the oversimplification, but… “Basically. Though it’s far more complicated than that.”

“He wants me to dig a trench.” Kurama sighed. “And what would the rest of Team Seven be doing while I’m digging a trench?”

“Checking for sabotage. A series of markers will be laid out for you to follow and Shoko is concerned that some of his less than loyal nobles will hire bandits, possibly along with low-rank ronin and missing nin, to remove or just move the markers. Threat rank is C with the possibility of going to B, well within Team Seven’s abilities.”

“If these nobles are rebellious, why haven’t they been assassinated yet?”

“Because they have been very careful not to cross any of the lines so far, but they’ve been dancing along the edge for a long time now.” Minato turned to Naruto. “If you do end up encountering any bandits please try to take their leaders alive. I’m aware that they will most likely have been hired by cut-outs, but we might get lucky anyway.”

Kurama was silent for a long moment.

“Can you give us some time to decide?”

Minato nodded.

“I’ll need an answer by tomorrow night at the latest. Last I heard Matatabi, Son Goku, and Gyuuki are between commitments right now, so I’m planning on reaching out to them if you don’t want the mission.”

“But that would make digging the canal take longer as they don’t have the raw power that I do,” Kurama mused, “Significantly so for Matatabi. Let me think on it.”

Naruto was very subdued during dinner, distracted in the distinctive way that spoke of an intense mental conversation with Kurama, with occasional unintentional incomplete mutterings of Naruto’s half of the conversation under his breath, and heavy thinking. It was as the dishes were being collected to be put into the washer that Naruto spoke up.

“We’ll take the mission, Tou-chan.”

Minato smiled.

“Thank you. I’ll let-“

Kurama abruptly puffed up.

“Minato,” he interrupted, an urgent tone in his voice that had everyone stiffening, “I just got a message from Matatabi. Hidan has popped out of his hidey hole, currently south of Iwa and making tracks towards Rain. Matatabi’s tracking him now.”

Minato frowned.

“Didn’t your sister lose the last time she clashed with Hidan? I distinctly recall Tsunade being called out to treat Yugito a few months ago.”

Kurama winced.

“She did. Yugito had a punctured lung, shredded heart, multiple broken bones, several ruptured organs, internal hemorrhaging, and they both had severe chakra depletion. Six Iwa jounin died getting them away from Hidan and eight medics put themselves into chakra-depletion induced comas keeping Yugito alive long enough for Tsunade to get to her. The only good news from that fight is that we got Hidan’s partner.”

Minato winced.

“I had no idea it was that bad. And they’re already going for a rematch?”

“They have Son Goku and Roshi with them right now and Gyuuki and Shukaku are on intercept courses, though their Chosen are staying behind. Matatabi has tried to get Yugito to stay behind as well, but apparently couldn’t convince her. Also, last time most of Yugito’s injuries came when we discovered Hidan’s abilities the hard way, that’s not the case this time.” A rather vicious smirk crossed Kurama’s face. “He’s _not_ getting away this time.”

After several minutes Naruto spoke

“So… is there anything we need to do to prepare for the canal mission?”

“Other than your regular training? No,” Minato said, then added when Naruto slumped a bit in disappointment “Something wrong?”

“No,” Naruto sighed, “I know training’s important, but it’s boring. We’re just doing strength, endurance, and chakra exercises, and while Kakashi is teaching jutsus to Sasuke and Hinata I already know them. Yes, I know it’s for their benefit and I’m helping teach them, but it’s _so boring_. And D-ranks aren't much fun when it's everyone against you, even if we do still win more often than not."

Minato chuckled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, most of the injuries Yugito took was when Hidan did his damage reflection thing with her blood. It only took one barrage to figure it out, but that was one barrage too many. The reason the six jounin died was because they were trying to stop Hidan without hurting him, unaware that the damage reflection broke when Hidan left his ritual circle, though that fact /was/ discovered in the analysis of the battle site.
> 
> Kurama wasn't even informed of the fight was happening until it was all over - his siblings deliberately excluded him. That was because it was only a few weeks after OTL Naruto's funeral, and Kurama was still in a very bad way mentally and thus in no way fit for combat.


	8. Chapter 8

The month passed without major incident. Hidan had managed to evade the taskforce sent after him and had gone to ground in central Stone, but the taskforce had the area locked down and was slowly clearing it. It was only a matter of time until the monster in the shape of a man was found again. At home Naruto was still grumbling about not learning any new jutsus, but Sasuke and Hinata were rapidly catching up on jutsu knowledge, the former thanks to his innate ability and the latter due to her doujutsu, so that was probably only a matter of time. In addition, all three were now able to complete half of Kakashi’s daily exercise routine – which Kakashi usually did alongside his genin – though the jounin had privately admitted to Kurama that he expected their physical progress to quickly plateau as they reached the physical limits of their pre-pubescent bodies.

Eventually, the day of the canal mission arrived, and Team Seven was called to the Hokage’s office. As Team Seven filed in Kurama noted the two humans in the office in addition to Minato, Akane off to the side in her basket as usual.

“Wakuri-san, Shime-san, this is Team Seven,” Minato introduced, “Team Seven, this Wakuri-san, head of the canal project, and Shime-san, the lead cartographer, who you’ll primarily be working with.”

Kurama eyed the pair as the humans greeted each other. Wakuri was a middle-aged man of average height with thinning black hair, a bald spot, a bit of a paunch, and was the epitome of the stereotypical bureaucrat. Shime on the other paw was quite tanned and ruggedly built, having clearly spent a large portion of the last several years in the wilderness, or at least away from civilization.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Kurama-sama,” Wakuri said, bowing, when the introductions reached the fox, who noted that Wakuri felt more tired and stressed than pleased.

“I feel the same,” Kurama said neutrally.

“I’ve worked with genin and chuunin teams before, but never with one of the Bijuu,” Shime said, a quick smile showing his genuine excitement and curiosity, “Should be interesting.”

“All I’m going to be doing is digging a trench, how is that interesting?”

“We’re part of a project that be of massive global importance for hundreds if not thousands of years, calling it ‘a trench’ is like calling your true form ‘a bit large’,” he said indignantly.

Wakuri gave his subordinate a reproachful look even as Naruto chuckled and the other shinobi emoted amusement. Kurama nodded to Shime, conceding the point. He hadn’t thought of the canal like that, but the cartographer was right.

“Is there anything you two need to do,” Kakashi asked, “Or can we leave immediately?”

“We need to pick up our packs from the inn, but other than that we are ready to leave,” Wakuri answered.

* * *

It took two weeks for the group, which had been joined by a supply caravan for the project, to reach the main administrative and logistics complex that had been set up at Tokkuniji, the nearest major settlement to the proposed canal whose southern entrance was a bit over a dozen kilometers to the south. During the trip Shime happily kept the genin entertained with stories of his (mis)adventures in the wilderness of Fire Country while Wakuri returned to managing the project’s paperwork and administrivia, rarely interacting with either Kurama or the shinobi, content to leave that to Shime. Kurama listened with half an ear, but most of his attention was on the mechanics of how he was going to dig the canal. Shime was correct in that this was going to be an iconic monument that would last for generations, and if he did a half-assed job of it his siblings would mock him about it till the end of time. The main problem he was running into was how to keep the canal at sea level as the elevation of the surrounding terrain increased.

Eventually he gave up and asked Shime how it was normally done.

“We take it in sections,” Shime explained, “Or rather, teams. You have one team that removes, say, three meters of earth. Then a dozen meters behind them you have another team that removes another three meters of earth, and so on, until the final team levels the bottom. For you I’d recommend that you carve out sections roughly as long as your stride, however long that is. Don’t worry about making everything perfectly flat, or even roughly, that’s the job of the workers coming after you. Regarding elevation we use locks – water elevators basically - to reduce the amount of earth we need to remove by raising the height of the canal. Those locations are marked with different markers from the standard path ones, identifiable by the baners fixed atop of them. When you reach them, go up four to five meters.”

The group spent only a day in Tokkuniji before setting out to the canal’s construction site with Shime and a supply convoy of building materials, food, and more engineers and workers, both with chakra and without, though there were far more of the latter.

* * *

It was midday of the third day after leaving Tokkuniji that Team Seven finally reached the start of the excavation point, separated from the sea by a large sand bank which they could hear the sounds of construction on the other side. Kurama looked at the two three-meter-tall wooden posts that had their upper half painted with alternating bands of red and white and were spaced roughly a hundred meters apart, with another pair two hundred meters inland on a small knoll, and presumably more after that though view of them was blocked by the raising elevation.

“You want me to dig between the posts, right?” Kurama checked.

Shime nodded.

“How deep?”

“Twenty meters should be more than plenty. That’ll keep us from having to dredge the canal for decades at least.”

Kurama nodded.

“I recommend you stand back,” he said, before growing to his full size.

Ignoring the startled oaths from the civilians he stretched and began to dig.

* * *

It took Kurama three passes to dig out the width of the canal, piling the dirt onto the banks, at which point he moved onto the next section. Team Seven and Shime hadn’t stuck around to watch, already heading inland to make sure the markers that Kurama was following hadn’t been tampered with. The last thing they needed was someone redirecting Kurama into farmland or a town. Granted, it was unlikely that Kurama would actually mindless dig though either, but fixing the diversion would be both expensive and time consuming. Best to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Thing was, most outlaws wouldn’t bother the markers, even if they recognized them – which was doubtful – they wouldn’t have any reason to move them. However, a sizeable minority of Fire’s nobility with some rather shady business connections, along with quite a few who did business in Water (which the canal would allow ships to bypass), were loudly protesting the construction of the canal for a variety of reasons that seemed reasonable on the surface, but likely had far more nefarious motives. If the canal were to get seriously delayed and/or be expected to run significantly over budget, they could use that as a lever in an attempt to get the project abandoned. After all, no one could be blamed for the actions of various outlaw bands who saw an opportunity to prey on the workers or otherwise interfere with the project.

Bands like the one Team Seven was currently observing from the underbrush as they levered a marker out of the ground, Shime, who was coming along both to ensure the markers were in the correct positions and head off anyone who attempted to claim that they had orders to mess with the markers, having fallen back several dozen meters so as to not be a liability, though he grumbled that he was fully capable of defending himself as he did so.

The group consisted of thirteen bandits and either a bandit who had managed to acquire samurai armor and a katana or a disgraced ronin who lacked either the funds or ability to properly maintain his equipment. The group was also worryingly close to the construction, being only eight markers inland and five from the section Kurama was currently finishing up on.

Naruto carefully watched them, having shifted to his semi-vulpine mission form, ears pricked and nose aquiver. He could both smell and feel via his empathy the outlaws’ nervousness and hear their quiet yet forceful exhortations to hurry up. Apparently, they too didn’t like being so close to the construction site.

Raising a finger to where his human ears would have been if he currently had human ears Naruto activated his comms.

“Sensei, we want to take these guys alive for interrogation, right?” he subvocalized.

“Affirmative,” Kakashi responded, his voice slightly distorted due to subvocalizing and coming from just in front of Naruto’s vulpine right ear.

“I have an idea.”

“Go ahead.”

* * *

Edamura Jin nodded as his crew finally manhandled the fucking post onto a cart.

“About time,” he grumped, “Now all we have to do is remove the other one and we can get paid.”

“**Paid by who?”**

Jin joined his men in jumping and spinning around with a startled oath. Then, once he got a good look at what had somehow snuck up on him, he joined his men in taking several involuntary steps back and paling. It was a massive crimson fox, easily twice as tall as a man, with nine long tails waving behind it.

“Kyuubi,” he heard someone whisper.

The massive kitsune grinned, exposing numerous giant fangs. “**Indeed.”**

Jin heard several of his men collapse. He didn’t blame them for fainting, but that wouldn't stop him from punishing them.

“What do you want?” Jin asked, ignoring how his voice was far too high.

**“It has been quite awhile since I last ate,”** Kyuubi said amicably, **“And I find myself in the mood for some _long pork_.”**

Several more men collapsed and Jin smelled urine, though he had, barely, managed to retain control over his bowels. He swallowed, eyes darting around at the light forest looking for an escape route and trying to remember which of his men were faster than him.

**“However,”** the demon fox continued, **“If you tell me who was going to pay you, I’ll save you for last. Depending on how the rest sate me, I may even let you go.”**

Hearing yet more of his men fall to the ground Jin looked back and saw that only four of his men were still standing, staring frozen at the Kyuubi in terror. That… didn’t seem right. Blinking he focused on the nearest of his downed men and spotted a small sliver of metal sticking out of the back of his thigh.

A senbon.

Eyes widening he managed to re-engage his faculties.

“Ambush!” Jin hollered, turning away and drawing his katana, “Ignore the fox, it’s an illusion!”

Something massive slammed into his back and pushed him face first into the dirt.

**“On the contrary, I am very real.”**

Jin struggled futilely for a minute before he was flipped over. Taking a deep breath he blinked up at the grinning visage of the Kyuubi before a man with a mask over the lower half of his face, a Konoha hitae-ate, and spiky white hair leaned into view, seemingly upside down, and cheerfully said,

“Here’s a bit of preservative to keep you fresh. See you at dinnertime!”

Jin felt a prick in his neck and his muscles went limp as the world went away.

* * *

“I enjoyed that far more than I should have,” Naruto admitted as he finished tying the last of the outlaws to the reseated marker, Kakashi sending up a chakra flare to signal for the security forces to come pick up their captives.

“If I hadn’t known you or Kurama that would have scared me,” Sasuke quietly admitted, Hinata nodding fervently.

“I was channeling pre-Jiji Kurama,” Naruto said, “He actually used to do that to bandit groups that he ran across. He wouldn’t follow through with actually eating anyone these days.”

“That’s not reassuring,” Hinata said, slightly nauseated.

“Maa, maa,” Kakashi interjected, “There’s no need to discuss the dietary habits of Bijuu. Let’s collect Shime-san and press onwards.”

…

“So how many bandits has Kurama eaten?” Sasuke asked.

* * *

That was the only outlaw group Team Seven encountered that day. The day after ended with them encountering and capturing two more gangs before the day’s end and Kurama having completed over a third of the canal. But now they had reached the part that had prevented canals from being built previously, the mountainous central ridge that ran across the isthmus.

Team Seven was currently camped at the base of the slope, Kurama sound asleep within his seal, everyone unhappily eating MREs due to the current downpour making a cooking fire impossible, with the exception of a somewhat wet golden-fox-shaped Naruto who was contentedly eating a freshly hunted rabbit. Raw.

Shime watched Naruto with concern.

“That’s not going to make him sick, is it?” He asked.

“As long as he doesn’t shift back to being human for a few hours while it digests, no,” Kakashi answered, “And even if he does, his Chosen constitution means that he’s only risking a mildly upset stomach and some really bad gas. Though someone with more normal constitution would risk being violently sick if they shifted back without waiting.”

“Huh.”

Shime watched for a while longer with morbid fascination before he addressed Naruto.

“So does Kurama-sama have a plan for carving through this section?”

Naruto swallowed his current mouthful before answering.

“I thought we were just going to continue as normal?”

“Most of the ridge is at least three-hundred meters above sea level. While it’s _possible_ to use locks, it is very difficult and expensive to lift ships up that high. I, we, are hoping that he has a method that would let the canal continue much closer to sea level. Right now we’re at roughly thirty to forty meters elevation.”

“Why not just carve down to here then?”

“You mean aside from the giant chasm it would leave? Right now Kurama has been currently digging through sedimentary rocks, limestone, sandstone, etcetera, and you know how frustrating he found it.” Shime nodded towards the ridge. “That’s made of fault-less granite, and a particularly strong granite variant at that. Even the best rock moving jutsus professional chakra miners have have trouble with that.”

Naruto frowned in thought.

“So going over isn’t a good idea, and you brought us in because you didn’t want to go around… what about going through?”

“You mean a tunnel?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the bedrock is strong enough,” Shime said slowly as he thought of it, “And Kurama-sama is actually several meters taller than nearly all merchant ships, so any tunnel that fits him should fit ships, and we can carve chimneys for ventilation easily enough… but how would the ships move down the tunnel?”

“Seals.”

“Seals?”

“Yeah, wind generating seals. Ships can _sail_ through the tunnel!”

Naruto’s tail was wagging in excitement.

“That would certainly solve any air stagnation issues, but wouldn’t that make the tunnel one way?”

“So we need two tunnels.”

Shime nodded, then frowned.

“But how would Kurama-sama be able to dig in the right direction?”

“Bijuu always know roughly where their Chosen is in relation to them. We just have to stay far enough ahead of Kurama for him to get a reliable direction other than up.”

Shime beamed.

“That we can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bijuu whose conscious is currently in an avatar are actually sensing their primary body within the seal, not their Chosen, but since their seal in on/in the Chosen the difference is only a technicality.
> 
> For those of you confused about where the canal is, look at the map I have linked in an previous note. It's going across the narrowest point of the isthmus between the mainland and the peninsula.


	9. Chapter 9

Team Seven watched from a kilometer further inland as Kurama stood diagonally in front of the currently dug canal trench, the steep upwards slope of the ridge before him.

**“Final warning, stand clear and watch for flying debris!”** He called.

Shifting his tails forwards so that they described a circle over his shoulders with his chest in the center, crimson chakra manifested at the tips and began to spiral forwards until it formed a cone of violently swirling crimson chakra in front of him. The chakra whirlpool darkened as the density increased, until it was a similar shade to the bijudama and Naruto could hear a faint scream reminiscent of the rasenshruiken.

Then Kurama began to slowly walk forwards and the chakra drill impacted the ground with a deep rumbling roar that made the ground under Team Seven vibrate despite their distance, dirt and gravel-sized shattered stone being ejected behind Kurama at frankly alarming velocities, disintegrating the forest behind him to splinters and shrapnel.

“Really hope no one’s behind that,” Shime murmured, voice laced with awe and intimidation, before turning towards the path the canal was supposed to take.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

It was probably a good thing that they were relying on Kurama homing in on Naruto to guide him though the rock, as the marker posts that had been planted across the ridge had been thoroughly looted. Team Seven had only seen two markers, both at the start of the day and it was now midafternoon, though they regularly came across the holes in the ground where the markers used to be, along with several sections where a group had repositioned the markers before another group came alone and removed them entirely. Thankfully, Shime didn’t need the markers to keep them on track.

Progress was slow, civilian walking pace slow, _old man_ walking pace slow even. The primary limiting factor wasn’t the steepness or ruggedness of the terrain, Shime, despite being on the wrong side of middle age, was handling it fine, it was how quickly Kurama could burrow through the granite without exhausting himself. As Shime had said, the granite was exceptionally hard and strong, to the point where Kurama had privately admitted to Naruto that even he was having difficulty with the constant exertion of the chakra drill, and didn’t even want to consider what it would have been like for his less powerful siblings.

Things had been quiet, Team Seven hadn’t seen anyone, bandit or otherwise, all day, the only constant was the slight but steady ground vibrations caused by Kurama’s tunneling that echoed out over kilometers.

There was no warning when four shinobi abruptly burst out of the trees, a concussion wind jutsu lashing out at them and forcing them to scatter, Kakashi grabbing Shime and taking him with him as he leapt. Landing where Team Seven had been three of the shinobi immediately went after Kakashi while the last turned to the genin.

“This fight is between us and the Hound,” she growled, “_stay out._”

Naruto barely had time to register her words before he was nearly flattened by Shime as someone threw him at them, and then a massive stone edifice erupted from the ground, blocking them off from the fight.

“Sensei!” Hinata cried, as Naruto, Sasuke, and Shime untangled themselves.

“Hinata, what’s going on?” Naruto demanded.

Hinata activated her doujutsu.

“Sensei’s holding his own, but he can’t go on the offensive, they’re pressing him too hard. There’s also some sort of barrier anchored to the stone wall, it’s forming a dome over them so Sensei can’t flee.”

“If we break the wall, will that break the barrier?” Sasuke asked intently.

“I… think so? The barrier is slightly in front of the wall, so if we break the wall we’ll also have broken the barrier.”

“Right,” Naruto stated, promptly launching a rasengan at the barrier.

Upon contact space warped weirdly for a fraction of a second before the bright blue ball exploded.

“Barrier’s still there,” Hinata reported, “but the rasengan definitely made contact with the wall. Try again?”

Naruto’s second rasengan had the same effect.

“I saw what’s happening that time. The barrier is flexing upon impact, allowing it to absorb a lot more energy than normal. Unfortunately, I can’t see any obvious weaknesses, so all I can offer is to hit it harder.”

Naruto frowned. Holding his hands in front of him a rasengan spun into being, before shrinking slightly and darkening to a deep azure. With a grunt of effort he launched it at the wall. The resultant explosion was quite large, but when it faded the wall was still there, albeit with a crater and several large cracks in it.

“That nearly did it, I saw the barrier falter, but its back to full strength now. Can you hit it harder, or launch two rasengans simultaneously?”

“I can’t make a rasengan any stronger without it destabilizing,” Naruto said, glaring at the wall, “And not even Jiji could launch two at once.”

“What about a rasenshruiken?” Sasuke asked.

Naruto shook his head.

“Tou-chan said he’d teach me that after the Chuunin Exams… but Kurama did start teaching me the theory behind the bijuudama before we left Konoha.”

Frowning in concentration Naruto reached for Kurama’s chakra as he held his hands in front off him, ready to shape it into the Bijuu’s signature jutsu.

_Naruto, what are you doing?_ Kurama asked distractedly, most of his concentration still on maintaining the chakra drill.

_I need a memory of you forming a bijuudama. Sensei’s stuck in a barrier and the rasengan doesn’t have quite enough power to break it,_ Naruto replied.

_How’d that happen?_

_Bunch of shinobi ambushed us. Told us to stay out and that they’re only after him, but like hell am I letting him die._

_Right, give me a moment-_

_I can handle this Kurama!_

_…Are you sure?_

_Yes! I know why you’re so protective, but I’m not helpless!_

_…If things go wrong I’m jumping in regardless._

_Fine._

Naruto closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling it as he focused on the memory Kurama sent him, not noticing the constant vibrations in the ground ceasing. Eight parts black chakra, two white, alternating currents that twist themselves into a vortex as they condense and…

Spark.

Eyes snapping open Naruto launched the fully formed bijuudama at the wall. The hyper-dense sphere of chakra impacted the barrier, hesitated for a moment, then continued on into the wall with the sound of breaking glass where it detonated, shattering the wall into dust and shrapnel.

Everyone instinctively ducked, and Naruto felt a fragment ricochet off his left bracer and from Hinata’s yelp she had been hit somewhere without armor.

When the dust cleared with the aid of Naruto’s wind jutsu Kakashi’s eyes immediately darted over his genin, checking for injuries. The glance only lasted a fraction of a second, but it was still a fraction too long. One of his foes’ katanas impacted his right bracer at a near perpendicular angle, and the crack of breaking bone was very audible. The traumatized nerves in his arm reflexively forced his fingers to open, critically weakening his grip on White Fang and causing a blow to send it cartwheeling out of his left hand.

“Time to die, Hound of the false king!” The leader of the shinobi crowed in victory, katana thrusting towards Kakashi.

Naruto didn’t think, he acted, immediately substituting himself for Kakashi moments before the trust struck home. The katana slammed into Naruto’s breastplate, denting the steel and releasing three sparks before deflecting upwards into Naruto’s throat, the tip deflecting off of the side of his spine and out the back of his neck. The last member of the four had been going for a decapitation strike at the same time and, while she was unable to abort the attack, was able to twist the blade so that it was the flat that impacted the side of Naruto’s head rather than the edge.

Everyone froze.

Blinking stars out of his vision Naruto looked into the shocked face of the leader of the shinobi, the deep scar from the bridge of his nose to under his right eye standing out sharply against his tanned skin and matching his off-white hair. Naruto felt blood trickling down his hands from where he had instinctively grabbed the blade to hold it steady.

“_Why_ did you do that, Chosen-san?” the man almost pleaded, “This wasn’t your fight.”

“He’s my sensei,” Naruto managed to get out, feeling the back of the blade resting against the bottom of his jaw and struggling not to cough from the blood trickling down his windpipe.

Surprisingly, the man closed his eyes in pain.

“I didn’t know,” he said quietly, “I swear to you, I didn’t know. I would never have come here if I had.”

He took a breath.

“If I pull my blade out, will your regeneration heal you before you bleed out?”

“Yes.”

The shinobi nodded and gestured. Naruto felt someone place their hands on either side of his neck, steadying it.

“On three. One, two, three.”

The katana was quickly yet steadily withdrawn from Naruto’s neck. There was no spurt of blood, as the arteries healed from the small yet normally lethal lacerations near instantly. The moment the tip left Naruto’s flesh Kurama summoned a chakra cloak around Naruto, causing the shinobi who had held Naruto’s neck steady to recoil away with a pained curse, and then everyone was knocked off their feet as the ground violently heaved, an almighty booming roar nearly deafening them as a few kilometers away the ground erupted into a column of dust and rock. A few seconds later Kurama, in his full Bijuu glory, loomed out of the column, his rage and power echoing across the land as he snarled, eyes seemingly glowing and all of his fangs bared.

The four shinobi immediately vanished into a shunshin, leaving as little evidence of their direction of travel as there had been warning of their appearance.

* * *

Sasuke couldn’t stop the scene from constantly playing over and over in his head. Kakashi, disarmed and wounded, replaced by Naruto at the last second only for the katana to pierce his neck, followed by the burning in his eyes as his sharingan activated for the first time.

If it was like this for everyone with the sharingan, no wonder his clan had a predilection towards insanity, especially those who had unlocked the mankegyo.

Thankfully the only one of the group with any permanent injuries was Kakashi with his broken arm, though his bracer, once they made sure it wouldn’t shift around, was acting as an excellent splint. They had set up camp a ways away from the battle site, Kurama flatly refusing to continue to dig the tunnel before Team Seven received reinforcements, instead curling around the campsite in his full Bujuu form, regularly raising his head to observe the surroundings and scent the wind.

“We can wait,” Shime had said in response, “If everything is still going according to schedule the work teams should be just finishing up with the first lock, it’ll be several weeks before they reach the start of the tunnel, and I doubt reinforcements will take that long.”

But now that Kakashi’s pack had been sent to Konoha to call for aid Sasuke finally had the opportunity to ask the question that had been bothering him.

“Sensei, do you know why those shinobi attacked us?”

Everyone focused their gaze on Kakashi, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the attention.

“Judging by what their leader said at the end, I think that they are remnants of Kazuma’s coup,” he said.

“I haven’t heard anything about a coup,” Shime said worriedly.

“It happened ten years ago,” Kakashi soothed, “Kazuma was a member of the now defunct Twelve Guardian Ninja, a shinobi attachment to the Daimyo’s personal guard. Somehow he got the idea in his head that the Land of Fire was suffering due to having two rulers, and that in order to ensure Fire’s prosperity and power the Hokage needed to die and the position dissolved. He was able to persuade six of his twelve fellow shinobi to his ideals, along with quite a few others. Obviously, Daimyo-sama was unable to persuade him otherwise, and sent the loyal six under the command of Sarutobi Asuma to eliminate Kazuma and his followers while Six Paths Samurai dealt with his supporters. Only Sarutobi and Chiriku walked away from that fight, reporting that all six of the traitorous shinobi had been killed. Afterwards there was a quiet investigation to make sure we caught all of Kazuma’s supporters, but evidentially we missed a few.”

“Will they come back?” Hinata asked worriedly, visibly restraining from wringing her hands.

Kurama growled

**“I hope they do, I want to have _words_ with them.”**

“I doubt it,” Kakashi said, “They’re not suicidal. From what they said to Naruto after… well. The only reason they attacked in the first place was because they thought that Naruto and Kurama would stay out of the fight. Now that they know that I’m your sensei I don’t think that they will try again.”

Hinata sighed in relief.

* * *

Three days later Kurama, currently laying on his belly next to the camp, still at his true size, abruptly got a peculiar look on his face and twisted around to look behind him.

**“If you two were anyone else, I would have vaporized you for playing with my tails,”** he grumbled, before shrinking down to horse sized to reveal Kin and Dai, who were wagging their tails and playfully dodged Kurama’s halfhearted swipes at them.

“Kin, Dai!” Naruto cried, delighted, shifting to an equally sized golden fox before the three pounced on each other and collapsed into a happily tussling pile of gold and red fur.

“Seems like you got yourself into a bit of a pickle, Kakashi,” Itachi said as he calmly emerged from the wilderness, flanked by Akane and a being with a fox’s head, humanoid torso, gorilla’s arms, feline legs, and a monkey’s prehensile tail.

“Itachi, Akane-chan, Inari-san,” Kakashi greeted.

“Good morning Kakashi-kun.” “Hatake-san.”

Sasuke leaned over to Hinata and whispered

“Do you remember ever seeing Inari-san around Konoha?”

Hinata shook her head.

“I’m quite offended that you don’t remember me, Uchiha-san, Hyuuga-san,” Inari said in a deep masculine voice, causing Sasuke and Hinata to flush with embarrassment.

“Then again,” he flowed into the form of a blonde six-year-old girl in a flower print dress, “everyone seems to forget me,” she said in a high pre-pubescent voice, then flowed into a middle-aged man with a bald spot and a paunch, dressed in a kimono that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Daimyo’s court, “I have no idea why they have so much trouble,” He changed into an impossibly beautiful woman with assets and curves that were absurd to the point of unnaturalness and set off the uncanny valley in all the shinobi who looked at her, “It’s not like I’m forgettable,” she finished, snapping open a fan and lightly fanning herself.

Shime, Sasuke, and Hinata stared. Naruto tried, but Kin promptly took advantage of the opening to (gently) bite his ear and drag him back into their wrestling.

“Inari-san is known as _the_ shapeshifter for a reason, and is also one of ANBU’s best,” Kakashi said cheerfully while Itachi discretely took a picture of his brother’s priceless expression, his own not even twitching.

Kakashi took a moment longer to bask in his team’s expressions before addressing the newcomers.

“So you’re our reinforcements then?”

“Indeed,” Akane answered as Inari shifted to a nondescript man in their twenties with standard forest patterned shinobi garb, “Minato sent Itachi, Kin, Dai, and I to escort Team Seven until Kurama finishes the canal while Inari-san escorts you back to Konoha for healing, after which you’ll,” she paused as Dai tore though the campsite, Kin and Naruto hot on his heels, “you’ll return, likely within a week. Jiraiya is already marshaling a taskforce to hunt down the shinobi who attacked you. He agrees that they are likely remnants of Kazuma’s coup.”

“Understood,” Kakashi said unhappily.

“The faster you get healed, the sooner you’ll return,” Itachi said, “besides, you were going to bring me in anyways.”

“Was I?”

“Who else do you trust to teach my otouto how to use his sharingan?”

Kakashi hesitated for a moment then nodded.

“Point.”

“Will anyone be teaching me?” Hinata asked.

“I will,” Itachi answered, “Though Akane will be teaching the fox trio several Summon techniques that Naruto can only learn due to being bonded with Kurama and can call on his power. Humans, like ourselves, are physically unable to do these.”

“You mean things like foxfire?” Sasuke asked.

Akane nodded.

“How did you convince your elders to give you permission?” Kurama asked.

Akane winced slightly.

“I didn’t, so if anyone asks I would appreciate if you took responsibility for teaching Naurto, Kurama.”

“I can do that.”

There was a pause, the conversation having petered out, interrupted only by Naruto shooting though the camp with the kitsune twins behind him. Inari strode towards Kakashi.

“Come on, Hatake-san, we’re burning daylight here, let’s move.”

Kakashi sighed as he stood, Kurama enlarging himself as well and wandering back to the massive hole he had made when he burst through the ground.

**“Back to work,”** he grumbled.

* * *

It took Kurama another week to finish digging the tunnel, Kakashi rejoining them then, at which point he has to rest for a few days before he started the other tunnel, which took a week and a half. Compared to that, digging out the last section of the canal to the northern shore was trivial. During that time, Team Seven and their escorts had no hostile encounters during the entire time, likely due in large part to the extensive manhunt for the shinobi that had attacked them happening around them.

Team Seven, plus Itachi, Akane, Kin, and Dai, left Shime behind to continue to oversee the canal’s construction and began to head back to Konoha the next day. Two days later they were stopping for lunch in a small village, nearly halfway home, when Kurama suddenly froze. Everyone looked at him in askance.

“Message from Matatabi,” he said after a moment, “They managed to flush Hidan from his hiding spot finally.” He grinned, “As of three minutes ago, he’s dead.”

“Good,” Kakashi, Itachi, and Akane chorused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are unaware, European full plate armor, such as Northern Italian or Gothic, has a maximum thickness of 2.5 mm and it was impenetrable up to and including early firearms (even “armor piercing” weapons couldn’t pierce the plates, you had to hit the chainmail protected gaps, like under the arm or the back of the joints, which those weapons /could/ pierce). Naruto and co’s armor has a max thickness of 4mm, and I chose that deliberately. Thanks to chakra, their baseline strength is naturally superhuman, and they are expected to face foes with similar strength. However, even that super human strength still wouldn’t allow foes to pierce standard thickness plate, but they /could/ hit it hard enough that it would crumple into the wearer’s ribs, with fatal consequences. The addition of 1.5mm of steel increases the plates’ rigidity, preventing this catastrophic failure except against foes or impacts with ludicrous physical strength/force even by shinobi standards, like Maito Gai or the rasengan/bijuudama. Konoha is also the only nation wealthy enough to afford to equip its mainline shinobi forces with such high-quality armor, the other three major powers can only afford to equip their elites while the minor nations can only armor their leaders, if at all. In canon, /no one/ had enough disposable income to afford high quality armor and could only afford to provide minimal protection, like the heavy textile flack jacket Konoha gave its jounin, and if a shinobi wanted more protection they had to pay for it themselves.
> 
> In case anyone was confused, yes that was Kazuma leading the attack. Asuma will be interogated by Ibiki thoroughly when they realize he survived.
> 
> Regarding Hidan: the task force decapitated him and cut his body into pieces, but that didn't manage to shut his increasingly foul mouth, so Matatabi vaporized him with her fire. He is /very/ dead, there wasn't enough left for Edo Tensi.


	10. Chapter 10

Obito sat in a chair located in front of a large intricate seal in the Akatsuki main base, located deep beneath the Mountain’s Graveyard, Zetsu sitting besides him. Reaching out with a foot he tapped the seal, a spark of chakra activating it. Nagato’s spectral image appeared in front and to the right of them, the three nodding at each other before the Rinnegan wielder went back to the paperwork needed to keep Rain running. A few minutes later Kisame joined them, Samehada’s hilt resting against his right armrest and the Mizukage’s hat on his head.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s start our monthly meeting,” Obito said.

“Hidan was unable to evade his pursuers and is dead at the Nibi’s hands,” Nagato said promptly.

“That damn cat,” Kisame groused, “Why must it keep eating the help?”

“Speaking of the cat,” Nagato said, “I finally managed to get confirmation that its nekomata ‘children’ are being raised in the Tiger Summons realm, so that’s one lever that’s out of our reach.”

“As we expected, so that doesn’t change any of our plans,” Obito said, “Any luck on that canal problem?”

Kisame sighed.

“Complete failure, construction wasn’t even delayed and Hatake survived. Once it opens next year between it and Wave’s bridge Water will be strapped for funds and resources, so that puts a time limit on our plans. We have two years, max, before Kiri becomes too weakened to meaningfully contribute and becomes a liability.”

Obito nodded then turned to Zetsu.

“Any luck with deciphering the Bijuu seals?”

“None,” Zetsu replied, “we have too few fragments of the seal, and what little we do have is far beyond me.”

Obito was unsurprised.

“So we’re going with Edo Tensei then.”

“We still need Tobirama’s notes,” Nagato pointed out, “and I doubt that any of us can learn the needed esoteric theory to finish it within the new time limit.”

“I've thought of that. We may be unable, but Orochimaru is.”

“Orochimaru will never work with us.”

“Ye of little faith,” Obito smirked, “Madara brought back quite a few souvenirs from Uzushio before its destruction…”

* * *

Orochimaru returned the last of the two dozen fertilized and healthy kappa eggs to the incubator, pleased at his handiwork. Life had been good to him this past decade. Yes, building a new lab from nothing had been an absolute pain, but he felt freer now than he had ever been in Konoha. He had set up shop in Sound, it being located near three of the four major powers and, with the assistance of the Bijuu, managed to get himself listed as a neutral power.

Now he spent his time researching things that he wanted, mainly the genetics and resurrection of long dead Summon species, as well as inventing new jutsus. Of course, that could, and often did, get expensive (especially when an experimental jutsu unexpectedly destabilized violently and broke something), which was why he created embryos with kekkei genkai on commission, with the commissioner supplying the genetic material containing said bloodline ability. It was understandably very profitable. In addition, his status as a powerful and discreet neutral entity had seen him almost accidentally start a side line as an information broker.

The intercom beeped.

“Orochimaru-sama, the delegation from Iwa is ready.”

“Please inform them that I shall be right out, Guren-san,” Orochimaru responded.

“I will do so, sama.”

Striding over to a fridge-like appliance that was a marvel of a fusion of technology and fuuinjutsu that he had commissioned from Konoha via Kabuto, he opened it and began to quickly transfer the twenty-four capsules within into the heavily padded and armored briefcase covered in powerful and specially designed stasis and preservation seals that lay open next to the fridge in preparation. Slotting the last capsule into place he shut and latched the briefcase, the seals automatically activating. Picking up the briefcase he left for the entrance of his compound, where two dozen of Iwa’s best were waiting.

“That it?” The leader of the Iwa forces, identifiable by his oni mask, asked.

“Twenty-four embryos with the ‘Earth’s Blood’ kekkei genkai,” Orochimaru confirmed, handing Oni the briefcase.

Oni cracked open the case and quickly counted the capsules himself, shutting it within three seconds of opening it.

“The seals on the case will keep the embryos viable for implantation for up to two weeks,” Orochimaru said, “give or take a few days depending on how often the case is opened. And I know I’ve said this before, but it bares repeating: sealing the package into a storage scroll or similar _will_ cause the preservation and stasis seals on it to fail, at which point you have _at most_ six hours until the embryos become non-viable.”

“Understood, Orochimaru-sama,” Oni said, pulling a wax-sealed scroll from a pocket and handing it to Orochimaru.

Taking it Orochimaru broke the seal and unrolled it, confirming that the scroll was a Writ of Withdrawal from Earth Country’s national treasury and that the amount listed was correct for the second half of his payment.

“Everything is in order,” he said, “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Oni nodded and turned to his men.

“Fall in and move out!”

The Iwa shinobi took off towards their homeland at high speed, Oni clutching the precious briefcase tightly to his chest, the rest of the Iwa shinobi ringed around him.

* * *

That night Orochimaru was reading a letter that Kabuto had brought to him from Akane, Namikaze’s personal summon, which had been a surprise for him to receive, given his official persona-non-grata status with Konoha. Which in practice merely meant that the Hokage couldn’t acknowledge he even existed, nor direct his subordinates to contact him. However, Namikaze was perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to members of Konoha, even in his own administration, engaging him in business, pointedly not asking questions when, for instance, the Senju abruptly birthed a number of children with Mokuton, many of which having no direct blood relation to Hashirama. Which was why receiving the letter had been so surprising.

But now that he had sat down and read the letter things began to make more sense. Akane wasn’t writing, or rather had dictated – unless the Namikazes or Uzumakis had come up with some sort of contraption to type directly… which was entirely possible – on behalf of her summoner, but rather on the Fox Summons as a whole. Apparently, and Orochimaru was so proud of them for noticing the obvious, they felt that a species consisting of two members, especially two males, did not have a stable population.

As such they, through Akane, were sounding him out regarding his willingness to not only create new kitsune embryos but also implant them into willing Fox Summons to bring to term, as well as how flexible he was regarding payment.

Orochimaru sat back, staring at the letter with a considering gaze. Despite his many successes since his exile from Konoha, he still considered Kin and Dai to be his Magnum Opus, due to both that they were his first success in species resurrection and the conditions he was working under, regularly pestering his fellow sanin as to their wellbeing and development. Between needing to keep them hidden from Danzo, the lack of purpose built zygote genetic manipulation equipment (due to the former reason), and the kludged together life support equipment to keep a dead fox’s womb alive for the kitsune to gestate in (Tsunade had once half-jokingly called the setup techno-necromancy, which Orochimaru admitted was a fairly accurate description), and several bad assumptions on his part (he still kicked himself about assuming kitsunes had the same gestation rate as mundane foxes), to this day he didn’t know how he managed to make Kin and Dai not only viable, but also without physical deformities or defects. Indeed, they seemed to be perfectly healthy.

The prospect of continuing his work on kitsunes… actually made him smile. It was small, but it was there, and genuine. Nodding, he decided that he would charge at-cost and for the materials only, not that he would tell Akane that, and would accept payment in material or jobs in lieu of money. The catch was that he would need Kurama’s, and thus young Naruto’s, co-operation in providing a chakra and genetic sample. Though Kin or Dai would actually be a much better option now that he thought of it. Yes, the two kitsune were a much better fit, especially since Uzumaki has been a Chosen for barely a year and thus had minimal mutation and chakra merging from Kurama’s presence, and thus would make the usual techniques quite difficult and have a high failure rate.

Pulling a clean sheet in front of him he began to write his reply.

He was more than halfway done when the intrusion detection seals went off, startling him. Given the sun had set hours ago it was unlikely that one of his staff had accidentally set it off – which admittedly did happen occasionally, usually when they first started working here – so it was probably – a faint vibration that passed through the floor made revise that to definitely – and attack. Striding to the main door of his lab he hit the lockdown seal as he passed though, which sealed all doors and windows and shifted the entire building slightly out of phase with normal reality, a fuuinjutsu technique pioneered by Namikaze Naruto based off of the Sharingan’s Kamui ability. Only himself, Kabuto, and Anko could deactivate it.

As he worked so closely with the Bijuu he had been made privy to secrets normally restricted to Kage, which was the only reason he could identify the group of white Zetsu clones, along with Black Zetsu and a male in an orange spiral mask, all in the black with red clouds ensemble of the Akatsuki, a shadow organization founded by Madara that sought to resurrect the Juubi, standing in the wreckage of the heavy gates at the entrance to his compound, the emergency lighting having automatically kicked on, forcing them to cover their eyes as their night vison was abruptly and violently destroyed. Across the courtyard Orochimaru could see his staff pouring out of the windows of their barracks, but he paid them little mind.

There was only one reason Armageddon Cultists would be attacking, and like hell was he going to let them get the kappa eggs.

Snapping out his hand in a flinging motion towards the intruders he cast a jutsu that tore the heavy flagstones from the ground and launched them at the intruders. Most of the white Zetsu were struck and went flying, but Black Zetsu vanished into the ground just before they hit and the flagstone just phased through the man in the orange mask.

Kamui.

_Damnit, I owe Gyuuki several bottles of sake._

“Hello Obito,” Orochimaru called, causing the man to look at him in shock, “Tell me, how long did it take Madara to break you to his will?”

Obito stared at him, but Orochimaru didn’t, couldn’t, take advantage of the opening, instead he was trying to figure out which, if any, of his more experimental jutsus would be effective against someone who was partially out of sync with normal reality. As he did so he was disappointed to see most of the white Zetsu getting back up, some with severe damage that would have been crippling or even lethal to humans, Black Zetsu popping back out of the ground completely unscathed.

Obito broke the stalemate.

“Zetsu, take the clones and deal with the flunkies. I’ve got Orochimaru.”

“Understood.”

“They’re plant constructs, try using fire!” Orochimaru shouted at his staff, using a jutsu to conjure a fire serpent that he sent at the Zetsus before Obito engaged him.

* * *

An hour Obito doubled over, tearing off his mask and panting. Nearby Orochimaru lay on the ground staring at the sky, mind completely dominated by Obito’s mangekyo sharingan. One of Orochimaru’s first acts had been to create some kind of distortion field in front of his eyes that blocked the sharingan’s eye contact abilities. The only good news about it was that it threw off Orochimaru’s aim, which had likely saved Obito’s life when the Snake Sanin had found a jutsu that actually _managed to hit him_ while he was using Kamui to be immaterial. As it was what remained of his clothes were smoldering and his entire left side was covered in burns. Even that glancing hit had very nearly disrupted his conversation and caused him to drop back into the physical world, which would have had lethal consequences.

Orochimaru had noticed as well, and had dropped the distortion over his eyes to aim, but between that and that the strange plasma-energy that simultaneously fucked with space-time took a few seconds to charge, he hadn’t _quite_ been fast enough to keep Obito from nailing him with a tsukuyomi, and then using that as a foothold to dominate Orochimaru’s mind.

Footsteps nearby caused Obito to look up to see Zetsu looking at him with concern, looking more than a little battered himself.

“You alright?”

“I will be,” Obito answered, and he could feel the burns slowly healing, far, far slower than they should have. Just what had Orochimaru hit him with?

Looking around he saw that the compound ranged from heavily damaged to outright destroyed, with the sole exception of Orochimaru’s laboratory, which was suspiciously pristine.

“So what’s the deal with that?” he asked, gesturing to the intact building.

Zetsu frowned.

“I am unsure. It is as immaterial as you are when half-way to Kamui.”

Obito shot Orochimaru a foul glare. Plagiarist.

Straitening up he walked over to the building and, sure enough, his hand went through the door he waved at as though it wasn’t there, yet when he went immaterial the building became solid to the touch. Punching it hard he saw the flicker of powerful seals and scowled. While it was theoretically possible for him to learn how to cast jutsus while immaterial, the difficulty was akin to a right/left-handed person learning to be completely ambidextrous; possible, but a process that would take years of dedicated effort for a comparatively poor payoff.

Turning material once more he turned back to see that of the forces he had brought with him only three of the clones were still alive, and all were badly damaged. The only consolation was that these were mostly mindless ones instead of the sapient ones like Tobi, but the sight still made Obito grimace and feel guilt churn in his gut.

“Did any escape?” he asked.

“A few,” Zetsu nodded, “The one called Kabuto has a rather terrifying healing ability, we were unable to keep him down despite multiple lethal hits.”

“Right then,” Obito grabbed Orochimaru by his clothing and opened a portal to Kamui, “let’s get home and stick a seal this bastard. I want to know how he managed to identify me on sight.”

* * *

_To my fellow Kage,_

_Four days ago at the time of this writing Orochimaru’s compound was attacked by the Akatsuki and he was abducted. Kurama-san believes, and this is the consensus of the Bijuu, that they took Orochimaru in order to force him to (re?)create a jutsu known as Edo Tensei, a necromantic resurrection jutsu that drags the souls of the departed from the Pure Lands and binds them to the caster’s will._

_While the probability of Orochimaru willingly cooperating with the Akatsuki is nil, Madara was present on Uzushio during the Betrayal, and the Supremacists were liberally using slave seals on Loyalists and their families. As the Akatsuki were founded by Madara, we must operate on the assumption that they have access to a seal that will force Orochimaru to work for them, willing or not. _

_If they manage to succeed with Edo Tensei, we will be facing resurrected s-ranks, kage, and Chosen. If the latter have access to even a shadow of their Bijuu’s abilities and power… _

_Given the eminent Chuunin Exams I propose we meet after the finals to create a plan to deal with this threat before it becomes an existential crisis for all._

_Sincerely,_

_Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage_

_P.S. Kurama-san says that Edo Tensei requires a genetic sample to resurrect someone, so guard the tombs of your heroes well._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Orochimaru's identification of Obito was actually an educated guess that Obito's shock confirmed as true. The Bijuu - thanks to Kurama's foreknowledge - have insisted that it must have been Madara that took Obito when it became apparent that Kiri did not have him. Minato is aware of this, but has kept it to himself as the Bijuu didn't have any proof.
> 
> Minato's letter was sent to Suna, Iwa, and Kumo, so Nagato and Kisame are unaware of it and its contents.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bitch and a half to write. Then I deleted the scene that was causing me such problems and the whole thing came tumbling out in a single afternoon.

Kurama lay on a roof with clear line of sight to Konoha’s main gate, using chakra to stick to the slate shingles. He was… afraid wasn’t the right word. Nervous, yes, apprehensive was better. There was now a credible threat to his existence. Intellectually he knew this wasn’t a new thing, Zetsu had been working to release the Juubi – and thus kill the Bijuu – since before they were even born, but if Edo Tensei was completed there was the very real chance that it could now succeed, especially since Mito had passed in her sleep last week. Currently Kushina was layering as many defensive seals as she could over both Mito and Naruto’s tombs, but Kurama wasn’t fooling himself. They had to stop all of Akatsuki’s attempts to desecrate the tombs while Zetsu’s pawns only needed to get lucky once. Sooner or later, the Akatsuki would get the samples they needed, and that was assuming that Obito’s Kamui didn’t just bypass the protections Kushina was setting up.

None of the Bijuu were moving around alone anymore, and while Kurama was technically the exception he and Naruto had holed up in Konoha the moment Kabuto brought word of Orochimaru’s capture and neither had stepped outside the walls in weeks in addition to Naruto getting a dedicated ANBU guard detail.

Currently Inari was training Naruto in regards to his shapeshifting while Kakashi gave Sasuke and Hinata some specialist training as well ensuring they could operate as a pair – as a Chosen Naruto wasn’t allowed to participate as a contestant in the Chuunin Exams which were starting in a few days. Kurama had no doubts that the pair would excel over their competition, they could keep up with Naruto after all, and even jounin and ANBU occasionally had difficulty with that.

A scent brought on the wind caused him to prick his ears and focus on the gate. Suna’s delegation was near, and Chomei, Gaara, Fuu… and Shukaku… were coming with them. Kurama was rather eager to meet his siblings’ Chosen, having heard a fair bit about them. Ten minutes later the first of Suna’s shinobi began to enter Konoha, primarily genin lead by their jounin-sensei, but it took another twenty minutes before he spotted Chomei, in her favored form of a cat-sized beetle-like insect, buzzing overhead and from there was able to locate Gaara and Fuu, with Gaara’s elder siblings walking on either side of the pair and, pointing his ears at them, could hear Shukaku.

“…need to be on guard. Kurama likes to live down to the stereotype of kitsunes, but his tricks will no longer work on me.”

Kurama raised an eyebrow. Challenge accepted.

He waited until the group was passing below where, without any physical movement, he hit Shukaku with a genjutsu.

“Get back here you damn fox!” the tanuki abruptly barked, tearing off in a random direction, only to turn and charge off in another.

Everyone nearby paused and watched Shukaku chase after nothing, frequently darting in and out of alleys. After watching for a moment Kurama shifted to a wolf-sized nine-tailed form and jumped to land next to Gaara with a soft _ba-thump_.

He watched for another moment as the four humans turned to look at him – and Gaara quietly facepalmed – before asking in seemingly honest confusion

“What is my idiot brother doing?”

_I’ll play along,_ Chomei sent via their mental plane as she landed on Fuu’s head, _this is too funny._

“…He shouted something about a fox and then… started doing this,” the puppet master, Kurama couldn’t recall his name immediately, said, embarrassed.

“Ah.”

They watched as Shukaku began spinning in circles in the middle of the street like he was chasing his tail before inevitably getting too dizzy and tripping, winding up on his back with his paws waving in the air. It actually took two strides before he realized that his paws weren’t touching the ground. Dismissing the genjutsu Kurama called

“Who gave Shukaku sugar? He always gets like this when he’s hyper.”

Chomei burst into giggles and while none of Suna’s shinobi did the same Kurama could smell their amusement and see several shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth.

“_You,_” Shukaku growled, which would have a lot more intimidating if he hadn’t immediately tried to get up, which resulted in him staggering sideways a couple of paces before falling onto his flank. Kurama wasn’t sure who started, but the moment someone started laughing the rest lost control and joined in.

Kurama turned to the Chosen and Chomei.

“By the way, welcome to Konoha.”

* * *

Several hours later Naruto was leading Gaara and his siblings, along with Fuu, on a tour around Konoha, happily babbling at them, and Fuu happily babbling back, while several meters behind the Bijuu were having their own quiet conversation.

“Konoha’s changed quite a bit,” Shukaku noted, “Not sure why I’m surprised, Suna certainly hasn’t been static for the past decade.”

Kurama hummed.

“You still having difficulties with the Sand Daimyo?” Chomei asked.

Shukaku quietly growled in frustration.

“The imbecile has already stopped all subsidies and is sending more and more local contracts to other nations. We’ve had to cut our standing shinobi forces by a third and shift them to civilian chakra industries. And if those rumors of a tax increase on chakra goods turn out to be true things are going to get worse.”

“Minato’s starting to get worried about that actually,” Kurama said, “He thinks that if the Huan Purists keep gaining power like they have we might see attempted purges of chakra wielders in a decade or two.”

“That wouldn’t end well,” Shukaku responded, “Even ignoring what I’d do if they marched on Suna there’s several chakra wielding regiments in Wind’s army. They may not hold a candle to shinobi, but they can still slaughter mundane forces several times their size.”

“Things are going to get that bad?” Chomei asked, worried.

“No,” her brothers chorused, Kurama continuing, “While it’s not _impossible_, it’s really unlikely. Barring some sort of spontaneous mass uprising, any sort of cult leader or supremacist that starts gathering a following usually find themselves discredited and the victim of a tragic accident, not necessarily in that order or as a result of separate missions.”

“We do tend to leave the obviously crazy ones alone,” Shukaku added, “They usually alienate far, far more people than they attract to their ideology. Plus it would be suspicious if all of the extremists kept dropping dead.”

They paused at the sight of someone abruptly launching themselves off of the roof of the building they were passing, clearly aiming at the Chosen, and the only reason he wasn’t killed by the two dozen ANBU that flickered into place around the humans was that Gaara caught him with his sand first. (None of the ANBU were guarding the Bijuu, as they knew the response to someone actually trying to attack them was “clear line of fire” followed by “bring all the mops”.)

The moment he got a clear look at the intruder Kurama groaned.

“You know the kid?” Shukaku asked.

“Sarutobi Konohamaru.”

“Any relation to the disgraced Third?”

“His grandson.”

They paused as they listened to Konohamaru shout that he was going to be the next Hokage and would restore the honor of his clan, even as one of the ANBU retrieved the kid from Gaara’s sand cocoon.

“That’s never going to happen,” Shukaku said definitively, “After what Hiruzen let Danzo get up to under his watch there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the other clans will let a Sarutobi anywhere near a position of political power for at least another generation, more likely two. Even then, the Hokage’s position will not be seriously considered.”

Kurama nodded agreement.

“That’s not Konohamaru’s fault though,” Chomei pointed out.

“True,” Kurama replied, “yet that doesn’t change reality.”

Glancing up at where the sun was sinking beneath the distant trees of the forests surrounding Konoha, he added,

“We should start herding our Chosen to bed. Their roles in the Exams are going to be demanding.”

“Kurama,” Shukaku gasped in mock scandalization, “you’ve become _responsible_!”

Chomei laughed.

“Kin and Dai are my sons,” Kurama said softly, “I've had to become responsible. I don’t want them to end up like we were before Naruto found us.”

His siblings instantly sobered and nodded solemnly.

* * *

Hinata walked towards the second part of the Chuunin Exams, Sasuke at her side. The first part had been terribly easy once she realized it was actually an information gathering exercise. Of course, the examiners were on the lookout for people using their kekkei genkai, but it was trivial for her to use her doujutsu when they weren’t looking. Even so, she had been able to answer a full third of the questions without help.

Ahead of them there was a fairly large group cluster around Kabuto, who was present in his role as a representative of Orochimaru’s information network, trading information on the various competitors though Hinata knew that said information had already been okayed by T&I. While they waited for the second task to start Sasuke discreetly cast a jutsu that let them listen in on the group. Unfortunately, while the information they gained was pertinent, they didn’t recognize many of the names and thus were unable to match that info to specific shinobi, and of the few names they did recognize they already knew most of the information given.

A sudden loud bang caused them both to startle, and they whipped around to see Anko stepping out of a dispersing cloud of smoke.

“Such a pity, you’re all here,” she sneered, “I was hoping to disqualify some more of you incompetent lackwits.”

There was immediate protest from quite a few teams at the insult, but they immediately quieted when Anko unleashed some killing intent. Hinata looked at the many white faced genin, a few of whom were even lightly shaking in fear, and traded a confused glance with Sasuke. That wasn’t much KI, Kakashi regularly let out more if you woke him in the middle of the night without a good reason. Incidentally, there was a reason Naruto was forbidden from eating things with black beans in them when camping, even if, or perhaps _especially _if, it led to the development of the “flatulence flamethrower” joke jutsu.

“Is that it?” Temari asked, voicing Hinata and Sasuke’s thoughts.

“You want more?” Anko purred malevolently, doubling the amount of KI in the air.

It still was nowhere near what Kakashi had emitted when Team Seven had found his stash of _Icha Icha_ and hid the books all over their training ground, much less what Kurama could put out if he felt like it.

“That’s still nothing compared to Shukaku-sama when he gives in to his bloodlust,” Kankuro said.

“Or being at ground zero when Kurama-sama loses his temper,” Sasuke added, “By the way, have the maps been updated to include the new fifty-meter-deep hole?”

Hinata frowned in thought.

“I think it was closer to seventy-five meters rather than fifty,” she corrected.

“It’s not like we measured the thing,” he replied, shrugging.

Hinata abruptly noticed all of the eyes on her, nearly strangled the “meep” that left her lips, and slipped behind Sasuke, who rolled his eyes.

“Huh,” Anko said, retracting her KI, “anyways, MAGGOTS!” Half the genin jumped as they faced her, “Before you stands Jounin Training Ground Delta, also known as the Forest of Death, and where we like to stick disobedient genin to be disposed of.” She grinned psychotically, “I do love listening to their screams and watching blood and entrails go flying as they’re devoured. After all, there’s always more of them where they come from.”

Hinata stared in disbelief at the blatant falsehood before looking at the genin. The foreigners seemed to be buying it, along with several Konoha genin, Sakura she could see had gone white, though Ino looked skeptical and Neji had simply raised an eyebrow. Shikamaru however looked like he was trying to see if he could fall asleep standing up.

Anko seemed to snap out of whatever daydream she had descended into.

“Anyways, for this section each team needs to reach the tower in the center of the forest with all of their members and these two scrolls,” she held up two scrolls, “Heaven and Earth, within three days. Twenty-five of you lot will get the Heaven Scroll, the other half Earth. A team is disqualified if one of their members is killed, incapacitated, or left behind. Also if they fail the objectives, but that should be obvious. If you don’t manage to make it to the tower on time you will be removed from the grounds immediately by jounin, we do have three groups after you waiting for this part of their exam. Finally,” Anko held up several sheets of paper, “In order to get your scroll you’ll have to sign this consent form acknowledging that you’re likely to be brought out as a pile of half-eaten bones and fresh animal dung, and it’s not Konoha’s responsibility when you get yourselves killed.”

Anko beamed at the worried mutters among the genin.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” (Hinata suspected that was another lie) “thanks to some unique circumstances there is a new feature in this exam. Within the forest are three scrolls, should a team successfully steal one from its guardian and make it to the tower, they will all automatically be made chuunin.”

That caused some excited whispers, but Hinata was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then Anko whistled, and three familiar figures appeared behind her. Hinata closed her eyes in dismay, and she distinctly heard someone go “oh, _shit_.”

“The guardian of the Mind scroll,” Anko announced, “Is Sabaku no Gaara.”

She handed Gaara said scroll. Sand poured out from his gourd and formed a levitating platform that he sat on in the lotus position, spectral desert animals made from sand materializing around him and prowling through the air.

“The guardian of the Body scroll, is Fuu of Taki.”

Upon taking the scroll Fuu manifested Chomei’s wings and chitinous armor on her body, drawing a katana with a flourish, the iridescent crimson color of its steel announcing that it was a chakra blade attuned to Bijuu chakra.

“And the guardian of the Spirit scroll is Uzumaki Naruto.”

Naruto stuck the scroll to his back with chakra and transformed into a giant nine-tailed golden kitsune, easily two meters tall at the shoulder, with ethereal crimson flames dancing across his fur, faint in the sunlight.

As one the three Chosen turned and flew/bounded over the electrified chain-link fence into the forest.

Anko grinned at the suddenly nervous genin.

“Have fun trying to get those scrolls from them. Also, the only rules they have is that they have to stay within the forest. That means they are free to hunt you if they feel like it. I’m sure they’ll have fun.”

She paused for a moment, savoring the fear of her audience.

“You have one hour until the test begins. If you’re not at your gates by then, you’re disqualified. What are you waiting for? Move!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bijuu are talking about assassinating people like the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis (neo and otherwise), Jihadists, and similar supremacist/terrorist groups. 
> 
> Because Suna is in a desert, it has a sharply limited population due to lack of available food, and as a result it is the only one of the four major powers that is not self-sufficient. 
> 
> Gaara’s gourd is the same one that was gifted to Shukaku in Family is Forged.
> 
> Sasuke's, Hinata's, Kankuro's, and Temari's scale of KI is rather skewed. Most genin don't hang around sources of high level KI or face foes that can generate a lot of it, and as such Anko's was far greater than many had ever felt before.
> 
> The reason many believe Anko's statement about disobedient genin is because Konoha, due to its massive population compared to the other shinobi settlements, has a reputation of We Have Reserves, even though Konoha's actual shinobi population is only ~30% greater than the next largest power - Kumo - but is far better equipped and has slightly better training among genin and chuunin as they can afford to select the best.


	12. Chapter 12

Naruto watched through a narrow gap between two large bushes as a team of Kumo shinobi strode into the clearing in front of him, a natural junction of several of the paths that crisscrossed through the thick underbrush of the training grounds.

“Sen, which way do we take?” the one in the lead asked.

“Sen”, a rather weedy looking shinobi, pulled out a map that Naruto recognized as being one of the ones several T&I chunin in disguise had been “discreetly” selling, causing Naruto to raise his eyebrows in disbelief. Did they seriously expect that such openly offered maps would be both accurate and up to date, especially with how cheap they were? The cheap price alone should have been a tip off. Admittedly he knew that from overhearing his parents – it’s hard not to overhear everything in a building, especially a wooden one, when you literally have the ears of a fox – but still.

Sure enough, after about a minute looking over the two-decade old map, during which Sen’s teammates turned to look at him, said shinobi admitted

“This isn’t on the map.”

The lead genin of the group immediately began rebuking Sen for “not knowing how to read a map” while Sen continued to, probably truthfully, say that the junction wasn’t on the map while the third member kept glancing between the two like it was a riveting game of some sort.

Deciding to give them a good scare Naruto stood, his massive kitsune form clearly visible, golden tails slowly waving behind him with barely visible, glowing faintly, an eerie light in the half-light of the heavy forest.

None of the shinobi noticed.

Naruto scowled at the oblivious trio, who crouched and spread the map between them, clearly trying to locate where they were. Naruto leapt onto the path the genin had come from, lightly landing on a diagonal so that he completely blocked the path, tails splayed behind him and fangs lightly bared, crimson will-o-wisps hovering over the tips of each of his nine tails.

Once again, none of the Kumo team noticed.

Naruto glared sullenly at the three boys. Dropping his pose he strode towards them, and while he wasn’t deliberately making noise neither was he muffling himself. And yet not one of them looked up as he approached. Sadly the sun was at a wrong angle for him to cast a shadow over the group, so when he stopped directly behind Sen the group remained oblivious to the Clydesdale sized kitsune looming over them. He shook his head in disbelief as the trio continued to argue over where they were and where they needed to go. Whoever decided that they were ready to be promoted to chuunin needed a competency check done on them.

As Naruto tried to decide what to do next, whether to wait for them to notice, pin all three to the ground by flopping onto them, or something else, he noticed that their Heaven scroll poked out of one of Sen’s pockets every time he leaned forward.

Considering their incompetence, removing them from the exams would be doing them a favor, and possibly saving their lives.

Naruto slammed Sen face first into the map with a forepaw, grabbed the scroll with his teeth, and ran as they yelled with shock, then outrage. A fireball jutsu and two kunai were launched after him, but Naruto’s evasive pattern easily spoiled their aim.

Now, should he find someone to give the scroll to, after making them earn it of course, or make a stash?

* * *

Seika led his team of Iwa genin parallel to the river that flowed through the training ground, warily scanning his surroundings. The slither of sand caused the three of them to freeze, glancing around with wide eyes. In front of them on the deer track they were following a spectral tiger, outlined in desert sand, materialized.

“Keizo, is our rear clear?” Seika asked quietly.

“I don’t see anything,” Keizo hesitantly responded after a moment.

Eyes not leaving the tiger, which seemed content to watch them for the moment, Seika ordered

“We’re falling back to the last trail junction.”

Slowly the genin team began to back away from the manifestation of the Ichibi Chosen, only for the tiger to start walking towards them. The genin immediately turned and ran. They ran for hours, using every trick they had to shake pursuit, but no matter what they did, the sand tiger was never more than a few dozen meters away. Eventually they collapsed exhausted in a clearing, panting hard. Seika watched with trepidation, limbs trembling on the ground, as the tiger approached, thin streams of sand flowing from the foliage to increase it solidity. In a matter of moments it stood over him, surveying him with detached aloofness. With wide eyes and his heart pounding in his ears the sand tiger, now more material than spectral, slowly lowered its head towards Seika’s face, and he closed his eyes and tensed, certain that he was about to feel silicate fangs tear into his-

A sandy tongue licked him from chin to hairline.

A puff of breath cleared sand from his mouth and nose, and he opened his eyes in time to see the tiger turn and run back to the foliage, dispersing into a cloud of sand.

Seika let his head thump back onto the ground and began to laugh in adrenalin fueled relief.

* * *

Isono cursed as she heard the deep buzzing of Chomei’s Chosen pass overhead. Her team had already acquired the other scroll they needed and were making their way to the tower. Unfortunately as they made their way there their desert patterned shinobi garb, designed to fit in with the deserts of Suna, had attracted the attending of Fuu, who was cheerfully flying overhead and pelting them with pebbles whenever she spotted them.

To say it was annoying and was an understatement, in addition to being mildly painful.

She sent a worried look at Tetsui, their lightning specialist, who was grinding his teeth in frustration. Hopefully he wouldn’t do anything stupid, but it was clearly obvious that his temper was going to break sooner than later.

“I see you!” Fuu called cheerfully.

Isono cursed and ducked behind a tree just in time to dodge a low velocity pebble, only to be half deafened by a sudden crack of thunder.

“Got the bitch,” Tetsui said with vicious satisfaction, striding out of cover.

Wide eyed Isono and Kunio, the third member of their team, scrambled to follow. Emerging into a small copse she paused at the sight of Fuu lying spread eagled on the ground, looking lightly charred. Just as she was getting worried that her teammate had seriously hurt the Chosen Fuu flipped herself to her feet in a single sinuous movement, charcoal dust shedding from her revealing undamaged chitinous plates and her broken insectoid wings reforming in a flicker of crimson.

“A solid hit,” she said, grinning, “But if you wanted to spar with me you could have just asked. I’m more than happy to oblige!” Drawing her crimson katana with a flourish she charged at them cheerfully shouting “Have at thee!”

The Suna team fled in terror from the delighted Chosen, Tetsui’s teammates loudly and creatively cursing him while Fuu cheerfully exhorted at them to stand and fight her like they clearly wanted.

* * *

Kakashi lurked on the upper battlements of the tower in the center of the Forest, looking out over it. It had been seven hours since his team had entered the forest and he was expecting Sasuke and Hinata to turn up within the next five. A warbling, shrieking howl, modulated to have extra “scream of the damned” factor, echoed across the forest.

“The fuck was that?”

Kakashi turned to see the non-native jounin senseis that had joined him on the roof were all looking wide-eyed and were clutching their weapons.

“Fox,” he said nonchalantly.

“Specifically a blonde fox who’s almost certainly having the time of his life,” Asuma said.

“Bet he snuck up right behind some poor souls before he did it too,” Kasumi added.

“That was the Kyuubi no Chosen?” an Iwa jounin asked incredulously.

Several Konoha nodded.

“None of you batted an eye,” One of Suna’s jounin noted.

“Do you have any idea how many foxes live in Konoha right now?” Asuma asked, “It’s a lot. You get used to the noises they make fairly quickly.”

A flicker of movement caused Kakashi to turn back in time to see Fuu buzzing over the treetops, her laughter faint on the wind.

_The Chosen are certainly having a good time,_ he thought.

* * *

Minato watched through his viewing ball as the first batch of prospective chuunin were led out of the forest, all but four looking more than a little frazzled. He smirked. There was nothing quite like having to deal with a mischievous Chosen seeking to amuse themselves at your expense.

_They should count themselves lucky,_ Minato thought, _they didn’t have to deal with a rambunctious Bijuu at the same time._

Taking a brief count he noted sixteen teams out of the theoretical twenty-five that could have passed this section, which meant that Naruto, Gaara, and Fuu were doing what he had asked – eliminating teams that were not ready for chuunin. Hopefully someone managed to catch at least some of their antics on camera, because he could always use a good laugh.

Sighing, he reluctantly but the ball away and turned back to the paperwork on his desk. The particular batch he was currently working on detailed the security that was going to be in place during the finals. Normally this wouldn’t be much of a problem, though it was always a minor headache, but this time all of the other kages, and the heads of multiple minor nations, were going to be in Konoha at the same time, both for the finals and to discuss the Akatsuki situation. That would have been a nightmare of a security situation all on its own, but Konoha also had to arrange for a guard detail for all of the tombs of deceased S-rank shinobi to, at least, keep track of which the Akatsuki plunder and will likely raise with Edo Tensei, but hopefully they would be able to catch and engage their forces before they succeeded.

The problem was that Konoha was, for the first time in a _very_ long time, falling behind in missions. Granted that usually happened whenever the Chuunin Exams rolled around, but never to this extent. During a normal week, the Mission Office usually gave out fifty to seventy missions a week, but the last week had only seen _fourteen_ missions accepted, and that number was expected to drop to zero once the kages arrived. Even with the security forces the kages and shinobi leaders were bringing with them, a worryingly large percentage of Konoha’s jounin corps were going to be pulling double shifts to keep everything covered. Minato was giving serious consideration to reactivating retired shinobi, something that had never been done in Konoha’s history.

Akatsuki had to go.

Leaving aside all other considerations, simply being on guard against their activities was financially ruinous in the long run. Though “long run” wasn’t really much of a consideration when dealing with Armageddon Cultists who actually had a decent shot at causing Armageddon. If you didn’t stop them soon, there wouldn’t be a later.

Minato still prayed that the rumors that Obito was leading them were wrong though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was an absolute pain to write. It fought me for so long and so hard that I had to step away from the story for a bit to recharge. And it still ended up short, but I need to move on.
> 
> That said, we are definitely starting to enter the end game, not many chapters left now.


	13. Chapter 13

The month between the second and third part of the Chuunin Exams, instituted to allow teams to recover from any physical injuries they may have sustained, passed without major incident. Which is not to say that there were _no _incidents, a great many of the teams that emerged from the forest, especially those which failed the test, were _twitchy_ to say the least, something that Konoha’s resident pranksters, and a surprising number of mundane foxes, took great delight in. As the tournament section of the exams closed in, various leaders and tourists began to flood into Konoha to see the spectacle. Rasa was the first of the kages to arrive, several days before the finals were set to begin, and Minato invited him and his family to dinner.

* * *

_Of the major shinobi settlements, one would be hard pressed to find a pair more different than Suna and Konoha,_ Rasa once again reflected as he and his brother-in-law (or was that former brother-in-law since his wife died? One of these days he’d be bored enough to find the answer to that question) made their way through Konoha’s streets to the Hokage’s mansion.

Suna was a land of browns and yellows located within a crater that had once been natural but had been modified by chakra to accommodate the shinobi settlement it housed, a constant haze of desert dust hung in the air, kicked up by Suna’s inhabitants as they went about their daily lives.

Konoha, by contrast, was surrounded by thick ancient forest on three sides and a granite edifice on the last with the visages of the current and former Hokages carved into it. Sadly Suna couldn’t do the same due to the crater wall being formed from alternating layers of sandstone and limestone. The differences didn’t end there of course. The majority of Konoha’s houses were drawn up from the granite bedrock with jutsus, a technique that all the other nations copied within a few years, and were all brightly painted, creating yet another stark contrast to the bare exteriors of Suna. Paint is very expensive there, due to a combination of needing to import all the coloring agents and keep it from drying out before it could be applied, and since most paints were oil based adding water, which was also scarce for Suna, didn’t work.

The third thing that a resident of Suna would notice was just how populated Konoha was. Granted, Suna wasn’t a minor settlement by any definition, but Konoha was the only shinobi settlement capable of rivaling their nation’s capital in both population and economic output. And all of that was before one passed through the inner wall and into the shinobi districts.

Rasa was, quite frankly, jealous. Especially since he knew that Suna would never manage to equal Konoha. Then he pushed those thoughts to the side as the Uzumaki Mansion came into view. Upon entering he discretely looked around at the entrance hall. Surprisingly, it was nowhere near as ornate or as large as his own, lacking immediately obvious displays of power or wealth. There were a few coat stands, one of which held the Hokage’s garb, and a rack containing slippers that had several pairs for guests (they were labeled as such), all made from fine wood and craftmanship, but lacking any adornments of wealth. Along the walls weren’t rare and valuable scrolls like in Rasa’s house, but a collection of paintings with space for quite a few more.

The largest was a full body painting featuring the Fourth Hokage front and center in his official garments, flanked on his left and right by his now wife and that fox summons that was almost always with him. On either side of them was Jiraiya the Toad Sage and the vulpine visage of Namikaze Naruto, Kurama, the size of a large dog with his nine tails fanned behind him, sitting at his Chosen’s feet. Arranged behind them was all of the Hokage’s Guard, Uzumaki Mito, and the Hokage’s civilian parents, against a backdrop of the forest surrounding Konoha. From the ages of everyone involved it had been painted shortly after the Hokage’s coronation.

The painting was simply titled “_Kin_”.

Rasa’s eyebrows raised in surprise at the blatant display of soft power before glancing at the other paintings.

One was a collection of foxes and kitsune, with the Hokage’s summon, Kurama, Kurama’s kits, Kin and Dai, plus a pair of blonde foxes that he didn’t recognize, one of which was a half-grown kit. The painting wasn’t titled. There was also a color photograph of the Hokage’s immediate family, with the Hokage’s oldest looking like he was roughly eight when the picture was taken.

A flicker of movement at the end of the hall caught Rasa’s attention and interrupted his examination of the hall as Uchiha Itachi, clearly on duty from his garb, stepped into view.

“Kazekage-sama, Yashamaru-dono, welcome,” he said, “If you’ll follow me Minato-sama and your children are in the living room.”

The living room was clearly the largest room on the first floor, well lit from light streaming in through the windows with finely made yet clearly sturdy tables and kotatsus surrounded by tatami matts and well-padded chairs. At one of the kotatsu the Hokage and his son were playing a game of shogi with Rasa’s eldest two, Kurama watching from where he lay atop another kotatsu.

“Hokage-dono,” Rasa greeted politely.

“Minato, please, Kazakage-dono,” the Hokage replied, “I’m off the clock right now.”

So this was an informal meeting then? Very well.

“You may call me Rasa then. How are you today?”

“Getting soundly trounced,” Uzumaki said wryly, “It’s been a bit too long since I last played this game regularly.”

Gaara entered the room from a stairwell leading to the upper floors with Shukaku padding along at his heels and Rasa had to fight not to avert his eyes from his youngest son. Intellectually, he knew that it was not Gaara’s fault that Karura had suffered a fatal uterine rupture during his premature birth, indeed no one could say whether Gaara’s birth had caused or was caused by it, but it didn’t change that Gaara was a living reminder of his dead wife and looking at him… hurt. Then he noticed the small pink balloon Gaara was discreetly hiding behind his back, only visible to Rasa due to the angle where he stood by the entrance of the living room and that Gaara wasn’t trying to hide it from him.

Noticing his distraction Uzumaki looked over just in time to see Gaara stick the balloon to Kurama’s back via static, causing the Bijuu to pause in his conversation with Temari. Kurama looked back and tried to kick the balloon off of him with a hind paw, only for it to stick to his thigh. He then started to twist, turn and basically do everything he could to get the balloon off of him, to no avail, including one memorable instance where the balloon did lose contact with the kitsune, only to drift right back onto him again. Eventually the balloon wound up between his hind legs forcing him to waddle comically a few steps before he had enough.

“Fuck this,” he growled, and flexed his chakra, causing the balloon to burst and dye his underside and the kotatsu bright pink.

“Such interesting balloons you have here in Konoha,” Gaara deadpanned, causing the snickering from the Uzumakis, Kin, Dai, Akane, and Shukaku to erupt into full on laughter.

Rasa glanced at his brother-in-law who sighed and reluctantly and quietly excused himself to lecture Gaara, again, on decorum. He suspected that Yashamaru was just going through the motions of such lectures, but as long as appearances were maintained he didn’t really care. Rasa sat in the chair next to Uzumaki and as the Hokage calmed down he asked

“Is everything ready for the finals?”

Uzumaki nodded.

“Yes, all four arenas are prepared and the camera crews have assured me that they will be operational and have spare equipment in case of a failure or damage.”

“_Four_ arenas?” Rasa questioned.

“Four arenas,” Uzumaki confirmed, “one for each kage. That’ll allow us to get through all of the contestants in a reasonable time period. Each will have cameras recording the fights for later reviewing, along with spares in case a stray jutsu damages the hardware. The cameras will be both recording and broadcasting using the new technicolor process. All kages and other visiting leaders will receive a free copy of all fights on the house, though the master copies will be remaining here in Konoha for long term storage.”

“That sounds… expensive.”

“We’re also going to be selling them to the public at a fairly up-marked price.”

“That makes more sense. Though can television broadcast networks handle color images?”

“Easily, though admittedly few have color televisions but a conversion to monochrome is fairly simple and will be done before broadcasting. There will also be a radio announcer paired with a retired jounin providing commentary. Though I could use your advise on something.”

Rasa gave a questioning hum.

“You children and my son’s genin team comically outclass everyone else participating due to regularly training with a Bijuu, so I’m torn between having them fight each other early on or arranging for them to meet in the semi-finals.”

…That was a good question.

* * *

Obito scowled as finally, _finally_ laid eyes on the Chosen’s Tomb. He was running way behind schedule thanks to that avoidance seal someone had stuck in the center of the place, which was easy enough for him to break once he realized it was there but it took him an embarrassingly long time to notice. Still, he had plenty of time - the third part of the Chuunin Exams would last for several more hours yet - to retrieve the bone marrow sample from Namikaze’s tomb and then meet up with Nagato, Konan, Yahiko, and Kisame to retrieve Tobirama’s Edo Tensei notes. It was a pity Zetsu couldn’t come, but he was simply too distinctive and infamous, and there was no way to disguise his unnatural shade of black. He'd have to wear a henge from the moment they stepped out from under the Graveyard, and they were sinply too easily disrupted to risk wearing one for such a long period of time.

Thankfully, Orochimaru knew their location, though it took a surprising amount of work to get him to reveal it given the slave seal Obito had carved into his chest. Turned out, unless something had changed since the sanin had been in Konoha, which was admittedly possible, the Third Hokage kept his predecessor’s experimental notes within his manor, not within the main or high security kinjutsu vaults. In fact, it was unlikely that Minato even knew of their existence, as he would have immediately secured them and Orochimaru, by way of Danzo who Sarutobi would have complained to, would have heard of it.

Entering the edge of the large grove that held the monuments to the fallen Chosen Obito paused, running his eyes over it, looking for traps or seals. He found none, and proceeded onwards. Upon entering the Kyuubi’s tomb he noticed that the door to the catacombs was sealed and had a fuuinjutsu seal that he didn’t recognize on it. He snorted, scornfully wondering if the ones who placed it thought that would keep him out, and simply used Kamui to phase through the ground around the door, completely bypassing it.

Namikaze’s tomb was, of course, completely black, easily solved by the casting of a genjutsu light. Obito took a moment to survey the original Naruto’s vulpine visage before shifting his arm out of phase with reality and reaching into the sarcophagus to grab a bone. As he did so he felt chakra thrum through his arm as a seal futilely tried to stop him and quietly cursed. There was no way that seal wasn’t also linked to an alarm somewhere.

Retrieving a rib covered in _incredibly_ foul-smelling blackish goop (undoubtedly the product of anaerobic decomposition) and quickly sealed it away in a prepared scroll before he could vomit. Then he tore off the glove he had used to touch the rib and incinerated it, which unfortunately did little to halt the unbearable stench.

Quickly making his way back the way he came Obito emerged from the tomb just in time to see all for kage and a significant part of their personal guards materialized in the middle of the mausoleum. From the way sauce and bits of teriyaki stained the front of the kage’s kimonos, they had been in the middle of lunch when the alarm he tripped sounded.

“Akatsuki,” A the Fourth growled, taking in Obito’s black-with-red-clouds robe, “I don’t suppose you’d listen if we told you to surrender?”

Obito promptly fired a chakra flare into the air and went intangible as numerous jutsus flashed through him.

“That’s what I thought,” A snarled, launching another jutsu.

Obito did his best to dodge the attacks despite being intangible, as the burn scar Orochimaru had given him proved that he could still be hit despite Kamui, and began to flee. Tempting as it was to try and snark at and taunt the kage and his old sensei, he was simply too busy dodging attacks he didn’t recognize and trying to make it to the rendezvous with the other Akatsuki. They had prepared for this contingency, but he, and Kamui, was still everyone’s ticket home.

* * *

Konoha quieted briefly as the chakra of Obito’s flare washed over the settlement before everything returned to normal, albeit with an air of confusion that likely wouldn’t last. Kisame quietly cursed in his head, glancing over at Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko who seemed to be doing the same, all of their henges making them appear as nondescript civilians. They now owed him money, having bet that they wouldn’t be discovered until they breached Sarutobi’s house.

Excusing themselves from the tea house they had been having a snack at, along with quite a few others, shinobi and civilians alike, the group made their way down one of Konoha’s main roads at the edges of the crowd before ducking into the side street that led to the home of the disgraced third Hokage. There wasn’t a stealth option for this next part though.

Sarutobi’s mansion was protected by robust security seals, seals that Akatsuki had no chance of getting the key for or figuring out a bypass to, not in the time they had. That said, the perimeter wall and the mansion’s construction was designed to be decorative over fortified, so when Kisame unsealed Samehada and soothed the sword’s irritation of having been placed in a storage seal by allowing it to feed on the chakra powering the seals, the team had no problems breaching the doors.

Everyone knew their roles and they split up to cover the mansion as quickly as possible. While Obito’s flare had thoroughly distracted the shinobi, they knew it was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the locks on Sarutobi’s mansion had been broken. The other possible complication was that they were unsure if Tobirama’s notes on Edo Tensei were here, but this was the last known location, and if it wasn’t here it would be in the main kinjutsu vault, and they weren’t getting in _there_ undetected.

“I found the vault!” Konan called from the basement stairs a few minutes later, causing everyone to converge on her.

Sarutobi’s vault was set into the wall of the basement, a massive wood door reinforced with steel bracing framed by solid granite, all reinforced with extensive and complex seals. Seals that were promptly rendered completely inert when Kisame used Samehada to shatter the lock, allowing the living blade to devour the chakra powering the seals. The vault wasn’t nearly as occupied as they expected, a single kinjutsu scroll on a rack designed for a dozen and a half-filled bookcase.

“I’ll handle the scroll, you look through the bookcase,” Nagato ordered striding forward.

Kisame nodded and, along with Konan and Yahiko, grabbed a book off of one end of one of the shelves and began to scan through it. About twenty minutes later, and after pocketing quite a few interesting books, Yahiko found the book and they quickly made their way out of the mansion, Nagato sealing the kinjutsu scroll, which he hadn't managed to open, into a storage seal.

The group made their way out of the mansion without incident, Kisame resealing Samehada, much to its frustration, as they did so. Nonchalantly making their way down the side street towards the main road that would eventually lead out of Konoha. Just when they were thinking that they might have gotten away with it a chakra pulse caused their henges to collapse. Spinning around they were just in time to see a Konoha shinobi disappear over the edge of the roof as he sent up a chakra flare.

The four Akatsuki members simultaneously swore violently and, as alarms began to ring out across Konoha, abandoned any pretense of stealth, leaping up onto the roofs and charging on a direct line towards the backup reunion point where Obito would, hopefully, be waiting for them. If he wasn’t there… well, then they were going to have to leave the land of Fire the hard way.

They were half-way to Konoha’s outskirts, easily dodging or plowing through the scattered groups of shinobi in their path, when they felt one of the Bijuu, the flying one, start gaining on them from behind. Grimacing, because he knew it would reveal his involvement, Nagato activated his Rinnegan and summoned the Bosses of the Heron, Giant Eagle, and Hawk Summons, tapping into the Outer Path to impale the trio with chakra control rods and thus enslave them to his will, ordering the summons to engage the Bijuu and any perusing shinobi forces, with a secondary objective of causing as much collateral damage as possible.

As expected, the pursuing forces were forced to break off to deal with the summons, leaving the only obstacle to the group’s flight the great barriers that were powering up along Konoha’s outermost wall, clearly patterned off of the Fuuinjutsu defenses of Uzushio. Pulling ahead of his companions Kisame unsealed Samehada again and destroy one of the barrier pillars powering the great seal array, the blade’s ability to absorb chakra allowing it to pierce the protections surrounding the pillar. Breaking the pillar opened a gap in the defenses for a few seconds before the surviving pillars compensated and closed it, but that was more than enough time for the group to escape.

From there it was mere minutes until they found Obito – they just had to follow the sounds of combat – still fighting the kages and their guards, everyone sporting light wounds. Obito noticed the moment they came into view and instantly teleported to them, Kamui swallowing them all seconds later.

Mission success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to bother showing the tournament because it's irrelevant to the plot and Sasuke and Hinata will just steamroller everyone until they hit their opposite numbers from Suna. 
> 
> Why didn't any alarms sound when Kisame drained the seals? It's quite simple: "drained of chakra" wasn't a failure state that the designers of Sarutobi's security seals envisioned. However, that trick would NOT have worked on the main kinjutsu vault after Minato had it upgraded. Merely trying to drain those seals would cause them to detonate extremely violently.
> 
> Hiruzen didn't tell Minato about Tobirama's experimental journals because he knew he was on very thin ice after Danzo and was justifiably concerned - and indeed had been explicitly warned by his clan head - that another scandal would cause him to be cast out of the Sarutobi clan, and that was ignoring the possibility of being "invited" to regain his honor by watering some roses. Later on, once that was no longer an immediate risk, it was simply far easier for Hiruzen to remain silent on the matter, for as far as he knew the only person who knew he had said journals was now dead.


	14. Chapter 14

Zetsu looked up as a Kamui portal opened up in Akatsuki’s main base depositing his four most valuable pawns, all looking a bit worse for wear.

“Welcome back,” he greeted, “I take it things did not go as planned?”

“Not in the slightest,” Obito growled, “We got everything we wanted, but all of our covers are blown. I wound up fighting all of the kage and the Rinnegan and Samehada had to be used for everyone else to escape Konoha.”

Zetsu grimaced. While that was far from the worst possible situation, it still wasn’t optimal. Why had the kage worked together? He had spent centuries sowing discord so that wouldn’t happen. Damn Hashirama and his idea to create hidden villages. That made everything harder for him.

“As such I’m going to be taking everyone back to their respective villages tomorrow morning, we need to prepare for Konoha’s counter attack,” Obito continued as they strode past Zetsu, who fell in with them, “Orochimaru is still in his assigned lab?”

“He should be,” the living shadow answered, frowning.

Closing all of the loopholes and exploits in the orders they gave Orochimaru had been an absolute _pain_. Unfortunately they couldn’t completely remove the sanin’s freewill if they wanted Edo Tensei to be completed. They needed his intelligence and ingenuity, and turing him into an organic automation would cripple the vary reasons they had taken him in the first place.

“Wouldn’t it be a better idea to consolidate all of our forces here?” Zetsu tentatively offered.

“No,” Nagato, Konan, Yahiko, and Kisame chorused, with Nagato continuing “Ame and Kiri would view that as us abandoning them and even publicly considering it would cause mass unrest and desertions.”

Zetsu nodded, frowning.

Thankfully they found Orochimaru exactly where they had left him

“Greetings, Masters,” Orochimaru droned in a monotone, staring blankly at them, “What do you wish of me?”

* * *

Orochimaru stared at the closed door to his new laboratory for a long moment, just incase **_The Masters_** came back to modify his orders. He had been instructed to use the lab to complete Edo Tensei and **_He Will_** do so to the best of his abilities. To do otherwise was **_Unthinkable_**.

Less than an hour later he was cutting a length of scrap paper to draw the preliminary and very incomplete seal described in the journal he had been given, arguably a waste of resources at this stage but it would make things slightly easier for him to visualize and he had been instructed to do everything he could so…

Just as he was finishing cutting his right arm abruptly spasmed, causing the penknife to cut into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger on his left hand. He stared at the blood blankly for a minute before turning towards the first aid kit and tripping over his own feet, left hand snapping out towards the floor to break his fall.

There was a poof of smoke and a vibrantly striped purple and green snake as long as his leg lay before him.

“Orochimaru,” it hissed, “Why have you summoned me?”

Orochimaru pushed himself off the floor and proceeded around the snake, ignoring it.

“Orochimaru, _answer me_.”

Turning to face the snake he droned

“I am sorry, but **_The Masters_** have not given me permission to answer any of your questions.”

The serpent froze, tongue half out and eyes widened, before it retracted its tongue and narrowed its eyes, completely vanishing from all senses a second later.

Once he finished bandaging himself he returned to the journal, looking over what he had of Edo Tensei again.

“The resurrection section of Edo Tensei seems to be nearly complete,” he commented aloud, speaking to one’s self helped some people organize their thoughts after all, “but the control section is a mess of half-finished ideas.”

He sighed.

“Might as well get to work. I think I’ll finish the resurrection part first.”

* * *

Anko was unenthusiastically eating her favorite dango, mentally and physically exhausted from sifting through rubble looking for casualties. The three boss summons had wrecked a large chunk of Konoha, and she didn’t want to consider how worse it could have been had Kurama not recognized the chakra control rods enslaving the summons to someone else’s will. Even then, it took the Bijuu to hold down the summons so that the rods could be extracted, and the fighting still wrecked dozens of blocks. She heard the poof of a summons being summoned but didn’t bother to look.

“Anko,” a voice abruptly hissed in her ear, causing her to shriek and launch her dango so violently the stick embedded itself in the ceiling.

“Damnit Rai,” she growled at the purple and green snake summons who was also one of the Snake Summons best stealth specialists.

But rather than gloat or mock like usual the snake simply said

“I know where Orochimaru is.”

Hope washed away Anko's irritation.

"Tell me everything."

* * *

Minato looked out through his office window at the large section of Konoha that had been destroyed by the boss summons Akatsuki had called, feeling like a failure. Naruto’s tomb had been desecrated, Konoha itself had been attacked, and the offenders had escaped with their prizes. In a move that he knew would haunt and shame him for the rest of his life, he had asked his fellow kage the best way to set up a mass grave. The only good news was that Orochimaru had somehow managed to send word, and Anko and her summons were currently down in T&I detailing everything.

A knock on his door caused him to look over as Kakashi entered, having failed to join any of the fighting due to guarding Naruto and Remon, admittedly more the latter than the former.

“Sensei?”

“Kakashi,” Minato sighed, “You’ll want to be seated for this.”

With great trepidation Kakashi sat in the chair in front of Minato’s desk, Minato seating himself in his chair as well. Sighing again Minato decided to just rip the bandage off.

“Obito’s alive.”

Kakashi froze.

“But?” he breathed, clearly dreading the answer.

“It was Madara who took him, and now he works for Akatsuki.”

“No.”

Minato gave his former student a forlorn look.

“Obito was the one who desecrated Naruto’s tomb.”

“What? No. No, Obito wouldn’t – there’s no way he would work for Madara!”

“You think Madara would give him a choice? That he would risk his chosen successor refusing him?” Minato gave a bitter smile, “Madara was there at the Betrayal of Uzushio, and he was one of the leaders of the coup. We have to assume he escaped with multiple seals that never should have been created, and given how fond the coup leaders were of slave seals…”

“Madara used a slave seal on Obito,” Kakashi said with a hint of desperation.

“As you said, I don’t think there’s any way he would have worked for Madara and Zetsu otherwise. But there’s more. He has the mangekyo sharingan.”

“How-_Rin_.”

Minato nodded. “That was my conclusion as well. Remember on how I commented on the pair of out of place scents?”

“They changed Obito’s scent?”

“By somehow giving him mokuton like abilities and powerful regeneration. Still don’t know who the other person was but my money's on Zetsu.”

“But how did Madara gain control of so many Kiri shinobi?”

Minato gave a bitter smile.

“I doubt we’ll ever find out. Anyone who could have told us how it happened is long dead. That said, depending on what Kiri’s hierarchy was at the time he might have only needed to compromise three or four people.”

“Could we use this? Turn Kiri on Akatsuki? Reveal that it was Madara who forced them into conflict with Konoha?”

“With what proof? All we have is speculation and conjecture. Speculation and conjecture that is almost certainly correct, granted, but we don’t have any hard evidence. Also, Kiri hates us. They wouldn’t believe any evidence we could produce, even if we got a different nation to present it.”

Kakashi was silent for a moment before shifting topics.

“Can Obito’s seal be broken?”

“In theory, but it would probably be a work of months if not years, and how much do you want to bet that Obito’s been ordered to not be taken alive?”

Kakashi winced.

“It didn’t take that long for Naruto-sama to break the Caged Bird seal,” he pointed out.

“True,” Minato admitted, “but the Caged Bird seal wasn’t designed by an Uzushio Seal Master and is significantly simpler than whatever seal is likely on Obito.”

The Fourth Hokage sighed sadly.

“But that’s all dependent on Obito being taken alive, and unfortunately barring extraordinary circumstances that we cannot count upon I just don’t see a realistic way for that to happen. I’m sorry Kakashi, but it’s almost certain that the next time Obito enters Konoha it will be within a cremation urn.”

Kakashi stared blankly at his old sensei, tears quietly welling at the corners of his eyes. Minato refused to acknowledge the wetness he could feel on his face as well.

* * *

_Several weeks later._

A red eyed fox and a cat with mismatched green-gold eyes wandered down the edge of Konoha’s street, overlooked by all but a few, and the few that noticed the pair were also intelligent enough to not bother them. Konoha currently resembled an overturned hive, a level of activity not seen since the campaign against Kiri decades ago, and for good reason.

“So the war plans have been finalized?” Matatabi asked.

Kurama nodded.

“Yes. Minato’s been bouncing all across the continent with his hiraishin like a lunatic collecting and transporting people for the war council, but yes, everything’s finalized.”

Kurama paused as reached an intersection, waited for a group of rowdy ninken to pass before darting across the road.

“The sheer scale of the undertaking is shocking,” the fox continued, “dwarfing even the Shinobi Wars, and I sincerely hope that we never see anything on this scale again because I don’t want to consider what else would warrant a response of this magnitude.”

“We probably will,” Matatabi said fatalistically, “Eventually. Though I hope that that is centuries to millennia away. How are we being spit up?”

“You, Isobu, Son Goku, and your Chosen are going to be joining Kumo in razing Kiri, along with Fire and Wave’s navies. Your primary objective is finding and destroying Samehada, everything is secondary to that. Meanwhile Shukaku, Chomei, Gyuuki, and Killer B will be joining Suna and Fire’s non-shinobi forces in attacking Rain, though Gaara and Fuu will be remaining behind in Suna as they are nowhere near ready for fighting against an opponent of Nagato’s level. Finally, Saiken and Kokuo will be joining me and Konoha and Iwa on assaulting the Mountain’s Graveyard, where the Akatsuki are keeping the Gedo Mazo, what they call the Juubi’s corpse. None of our Chosen will be joining us there due to the risk of being sealed into the Juubi.”

“I bet that didn’t make Naruto happy,” Matatabi noted.

“He was actually easy to placate. Minato pointed out to him that he is Konoha’s primary line of defense in the event Akatsuki have strike teams out in the field who decide to take advantage of the fact that all of Konoha’s high level shinobi are gone.”

The pair continued onwards for a ways in silence.

“Why didn’t Tou-san destroy that thing when he had the chance?” Matatabi grumbled.

“The Gedo Mazo?” Kurama checked, receiving a nod from his sister “it’s all that’s left of Obaasan. And despite everything that happened, everything that she did, both before she became and as the Juubi, he still loved her. She was his Kaa-san, and he couldn’t bring himself to become a kin-slayer. So he sealed the corpse away and created us to keep her from ever coming back.”

“Would destroying the corpse make you a kin-slayer?” Matatabi wondered.

“I can make an argument for and against, but it needs to be done. We cannot risk someone else getting the idea in their heads to resurrect the Juubi.”

“True.”

The two Bijuu took a right and began to meander through Konoha’s shinobi market district. Several minutes later Kurama paused, causing Matatabi to stop and then follow his gaze. Flittering between market stalls and stores was an obese noblewoman, dressed in fine silks and with golden jewelry, but what had clearly gotten Kurama’s attention was the large purse the woman was wearing, which had a cat comfortably sitting in it with a bejeweled collar around its neck.

Matatabi’s gaze snapped back to Kurama, who was side-eyeing her with the corner of his mouth starting to twitch upwards and she could feel the air currents caused by the slow swishing of his tail.

“Kurama, no! I am not an accessory!”

Kurama grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left. We're almost at the end.
> 
> No, this timeline's Naruto will not participate in the climatic battle, he is simply too young and untrained, and no one, Akatsuki or Bijuu, can afford to wait the years needed for Naruto to become a powerhouse.


	15. Chapter 15

Obito was in the middle of educating Deidara, Akatsuki’s newest recruit, on the various codes they used when the emergency call alarm went off. He cursed and ran to the meeting room, Deidara following behind him. He threw a spark of chakra at the seal as he slowed his pace through the door, causing Nagato and Kisame’s images to spring up.

“How bad is it?” were the first words out of Obito’s mouth.

“Bad,” Nagato said grimly as Deidara stopped at the door, Zetsu joining him, “Konoha has split their forces in three, their navy, such as it is, is headed after Kiri, Fire’s army, led by their daimyo’s personal guard, is heading towards me, and their elite shinobi plus Bijuu are heading towards the Mountain’s Graveyard.”

“That makes no sense,” Deidara said, “Fire’s navy cannot beat Kiri’s, and I doubt their army can take Nagato-sama. Also, how did they find us?”

“I think they only know your rough location,” Nagato said, nodding at Deidara, “though that was my assessment as well, so I started checking in with other parts of our network. Kumo’s fleet has set sail to join with Fire’s to attack Kiri, and that’s something that we should have seen coming, but Suna is marching on me and Iwa is heading towards you, and both Suna and Kumo also have Bijuu with them.”

Everyone cursed.

“How did we miss this?” Kisame demanded.

“We were focused on what Konoha was doing and keeping them from eliminating our intelligence network there, for what little good that did,” Obito answered, “How far away is Sasori?”

“He and his new recruits were just passing through the Fang Mountains several days ago,” Nagato answered, “but even if he’s made the best possible time he’s still on the wrong side of Iwa to help and will likely run into Iwa’s army on the way here, and we have no way to warn him.”

“Kami damn it,” Obito sighed.

“It that everything?” Kisame asked, “Because I need to see to Kiri’s defense.”

There was a pause as everyone looked at each other for a long moment.

“Good luck then,” Obito said, deactivating the seal.

“What are we going to do, boss?” Deidara asked worriedly.

“We need to use the tree to create clones,” Zetsu said, “We need the numbers.”

Obito nodded while Deidara asked

“What tree?”

“I’ll show you,” Obito answered, “But you should prepare some of your, uh, ‘art’ for our uninvited guests.”

* * *

Kurama stood at the entrance to a valley created in the last battle of the Juubi War, where Akatsuki had hidden their main base, Minato and Onoki standing beside him, the three looking at the giant bones of countless boss Summons who gave their lives so that the world might live. Behind them, the combined shinobi forces of Konoha and Iwa as well as Kurama’s siblings were preparing for battle in a massive crater that had probably been created by a bijuudama of immense power – not even Kurama’s strongest bijuudama could make such a giant crater – that they had spent the night in.

“If this is their main base, then where are they?” Onoki grumped.

“Hiding,” Kurama answered, “They clearly haven’t realized that we know where they are, so they’re staying quiet in the hope that we’ll pass them by. The moment they realize we know they’re there, dozens to hundreds of White Zetsus are going to come up out of the ground.”

Onoki grunted.

“Do you think Black Zetsu or… or Obito… will lead them?” Minato asked.

“Possibly,” Kurama answered, “One of Akatsuki’s other lieutenants might lead them, like Sasori,” he glanced at Onoki, “Or Deidara.”

Onoki scowled thunderously.

“If T&I have really dropped the ball we might even end up facing Nagato. If that happens Saiken, Kokuo and I will have to engage him while you and your strike teams penetrate Akatsuki’s headquarters.”

“So where is their base?” Onoki asked.

“You see that spine segment sticking out of the valley wall at the far end?”

Onoki gave an affirmative grunt.

“They’ve hollowed out where the spinal cord was and are using that as the entrance.”

The three of them stared at the ancient weathered bones of someone the Juubi had killed by plowing them into the ground hard enough to create the several kilometer long valley for a long moment before Minato glanced back at the camp.

“Well, it looks like our army’s ready, so let’s poke this nest and see what flies up.”

BREAK

Obito, Zetsu, and Deidara were gathered around the bulky CRT screen, staring at the grainy, low resolution, black and white image from the sole camera that the Akatsuki owned that had been hidden above the base’s main entrance, the emergency diesel generator that had been turned on to power the electronics rumbling noisily behind them, a seal forcing the exhaust gases into a high pressure cylinder. Most gases at least, the room still stank of diesel exhaust.

“They know we’re here,” Deidara said, voicing what they had all realized.

“When I find who sold us out…” Obito growled before taking a deep breath to steady himself. “Zetsu, take the clones and lead the attack, I’ll stay here with a reserve and intercept anyone who makes it past you.”

“What about me?” Deidara asked.

Obito eyed him for a long moment, clearly thinking, before answering.

“You’re going to be guarding Orochimaru. He’s their likely objective, and you need to keep him out of their hands.”

“Asset denial if I can’t stop them?”

Obito hesitated a moment before answering.

“Yes, he isn’t truly loyal and knows far too much. However, his research is absolutely vital and his death or loss will set us back years. Asset denial is very much a last resort. I’ll need to introduce you so he knows to accept your orders. Come on.”

“I’ll start organizing the clones,” Zetsu said as the two humans left the room.

Deidara followed Obito as he led him into a section of the base he hadn’t been allowed in before, passing a cavern that had a particularly ugly statue in it, eventually ending in a lab were the fabled exiled sannin was working. The walls were covered in advanced and complex fuuinjutsu script and diagrams – presumably anyway, they might have been random squiggles Orochimaru found aesthetically pleasing for all Deidara knew as what was shown was far beyond his level of comprehension – with the sannin working on a massive scroll laid out across multiple tables that had been pushed together. As they approached Orochimaru straightened then gave Obito a very low bow.

“Greetings Master Obito,” he groveled in a monotone that set alarm bells ringing in Deidara’s head due to just how wrong the sight was, “What do you require of me?”

“This is Deidara,” Obito said, gesturing to the ex-Iwa shinobi, “In the absence of myself, Zetsu, Nagato, or Kisame, you are to listen to his orders. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” Orochimaru droned.

“In addition, I need you to finish Edo Tensi immediately. It is acceptable to use any resource available to you – within reason – to do so. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

Obito nodded, turned to Deidara, said, “I’ll leave you to it,” and left.

* * *

The allied shinobi and three Bijuu were halfway across the valley when Akatsuki attacked. Multiple points across the valley walls to the flanks and behind the shinobi exploded, hundreds of White Zetsus pouring through the dust to engage the forces of Iwa and Konoha.

They had been expecting this, but everyone was taken aback by the sheer number of clones, many fusing into small house-sized constructs powerful enough to keep even the Bijuu and S-ranks occupied, as the shinobi and Bijuu were limited in using their most powerful jutsus by the presence of friendly forces.

The two forces were alarmingly evenly matched. The average jounin could put out more damage and was generally more skilled than the Zetsu clones, but the clones’ durability more than made up the difference.

It was the Bijuu that tipped the balance. While they couldn’t wipe out large swaths of the clones, any clone construct that cleared three meters, and thus presented a clear line of fire well over the shinobi’s heads, ate a bijuudama to their upper torso, which overwhelmed the clones’ impressive durability.

After a few minutes it became apparent that the clones would not be able to overwhelm the allied shinobi, at which point they suddenly disengaged. The shinobi held back from pursuing, wary of being led into a trap, and watched as the clones reformed their lines along the valley walls.

After several long, tense minutes, where the med-nin treated the wounded, Kakashi, standing next to Minato and Onoki, along with the rest of the kages’ guards, muttered

“Why aren’t they attacking?”

“They’re stalling for time,” Onoki grunted, scowling at the distant figures.

“For reinforcements or to evacuate the base?” Minato wondered aloud before shaking his head, “Doesn’t matter. If they want time, we shouldn’t give it to them. Hm… Onoki-dono, you have more experience leading armies than me. If I take my guard and Kurama and lead a strike on Akatsuki’s base, can you handle the clones?”

Onoki thought for a long moment before nodding, “Aye, I can deal with this lot, you make sure they don’t get away.”

Minato gave standing orders to the Konoha shinobi to listen to Onoki in his absence, then he and his guard cast jutsus to conceal them from sight, sound, smell, and chakra sense while Kurama shrunk himself into the form of a smaller than average fox, shoving most of his chakra back down the link to Naruto, who he was keeping updated and was in turn being updated about the what was happening back in Konoha – very little – which he passed on to Minato, leaving his avatar with barely enough chakra to sustain it, reducing his chakra signature to the point where someone would have to be right on top of him to sense it.

Then the six of them snuck to the edge of the army and began to crawl through the long grass of the valley floor towards the entrance of the Akatsuki’s hideout. It would take them awhile to reach it, but stealth was paramount. If Akatsuki noticed, they could be overwhelmed before shinobi could come to their aid. Best to be cautious.

* * *

Deidara watched curiously as Orochimaru put the fishing touches on a massive intricate seal on the floor in the middle of the workshop, having spent the last hour and a half or so transferring the seal from the massive scroll to the stone ground. The former Iwa nin stared at the array, entranced by its intricacy, wondering if, or how, he could incorporate such seals into his art. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Orochimaru approaching him and, assuming that he was blocking the sannin’s way to something, stepped aside. Only to be literally blindsided by a jutsu that severed all sensation and motor control below the neck.

“What the hell?” Deidara cried as he started to fall, only for Orochimaru to catch him and start dragging him towards the seal, “Orochimaru, what are you doing?”

“Testing the seal,” Orochimaru droned.

“Testing the – you said it isn’t ready!”

“I believe the resurrection part is, and the fastest and most reliable way to confirm that is to test it,” the sannin answered as he dropped Deidara in the center of the seal and left the ex-Iwa nin’s field of view, at which point he discovered that he couldn’t turn his head due to paralyzed neck muscles.

“So why the fuck have you paralyzed me?”

“A sacrifice is needed.”

“A sac- I AM NOT AN ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE!”

“On the contrary,” Orochimaru said, stepping back into Deidara’s field of view holding an opaque vial, “you meet all of the physical requirements.”

“This is not within reason as an acceptable resource!” Deidara desperately cried.

“I disagree,” Orochimaru responded with a small smile and eyes glittering with malice, and started the ritual.

The screaming stopped a long moment later.

There was a pause.

“_Orochimaru._”

“Excellent, the resurrection worked as expected. Now, do the Little Teapot song and dance.”

…

“…No?”

“Control seals failed to apply correctly,” Orochimaru noted, not sounding particularly upset, “Master Obito will be most disappointed. Oh well, back to the drawing board.”

The sannin, quite deliberately, turned his back and was promptly knocked unconscious by a jutsu.

“Wait, _Master_ Obito? What did I miss while I was dead?”

* * *

It had taken a long stressful hour, but Minato’s strike squad had finally reached the hollowed out vertebra that led to Akatsuki’s base. Being able to stand up without risk of being spotted was a huge relief for the humans, as was channeling chakra back into his avatar so that it no longer felt like it was on the verge of dispersing for Kurama. Spending the next several minutes sneaking down the shaft that led deep under the earth was still stressful, though, especially when they started to hear voices, a quick jutsu amplifying them to the point of easy understanding as they snuck down to a corner that clearly led into some sort of large room, judging from the acoustics.

“-ill no sign of it.”

An adult man made a noise that could have been either a groan or a muffled curse.

“Do you have any idea where it could have gone? The last thing we need is the Kyuubi popping up behind us at the worst possible time.”

“I think that it went back to it’s Chosen Pawn, which likely means that we have another force sneaking around out there.”

“Pincer attack?”

“Probably. But the fact that it’s not there means that we have an opportunity.”

“Yes, but two Bijuu are still a force to be reckoned with, especially since they have an army backing them up and neither are of the lesser half of the lot. But if you do manage to beat them send a clone to let me know and I’ll seal them in preparation for extraction.”

“I’ll be cautious.”

After a long moment it became apparent that the first speaker had left somehow and Minato pulled out a specially prepared kunai and held it behind him. He felt Iwashi grab it and then a flicker of chakra as the single-use preloaded hirashin activated, transporting his guardsman back to the paired kunai Minato had left behind near Onoki, ensuring that the army wouldn’t be taken by surprise by the upcoming attack.

Holding up three fingers, Minato silently counted down with them and upon reaching zero rushed the room, leading with a variety of mid-level jutsus, such as wind blades from Minato, a thunderbolt analogue from Kakashi, or Kurama’s ball of foxfire, everyone keenly aware just how far they were underground and not wanting to risk a cave in. The two dozen clones were caught off guard and were tossed about and torn apart, but the attacks phased through the lone Akatsuki figure even as the man startled, sending a kunai back at them. A few salvos later and all of the clones were dead or incapacitated, the lone human of the lot having summoned a pillar of wood stretching from the ground to the ceiling to shield him.

As the group of humans and Kurama spread out Minato said

“Hello again, Obito.”

“Minato,” Obito growled, stepping out from behind his pillar, “Kakashi.”

There was a long pause as the two sides sized each other up, enforced by that none of the shinobi had a way to hit Obito when he was using kamui, and the latter unable to attack without dropping it, however briefly.

“What did Madara and Zetsu do to you, Obito?” Kakashi asked, voice rough with emotion though his hands and stance were steady.

“Nothing other than show how little you and Konoha care for those under you. You abandoned me and Rin!”

“I did no such thing!” Minato shot back, “When you were taken I followed your scent trail all the way to the cave Kiri had taken you to and then collapsed! All we found were your goggles! And I left Konoha the moment Rin was declared overdue and found her _minutes_ after you and Zetsu left!”

“Do you serious expect me to believe that-“ Obito broke off as everyone noticed the clicking of claws coming from one of the tunnels branching off from the room.

After a long minute of steadily increasing tension, the maker of the noise came into view.

“No…” Kurama breathed in horror, his feelings echoed in the shinobi with him.

_Kurama, what is it?_ Naruto asked from back in Konoha, now looking through the ancient fox’s eyes.

The figure was a human-fox hybrid, which instantly identified him to everyone, but there were several differences. The most noticeable was that instead fox-orange as the dominate fur color it was a very familiar shade of gold, followed by the scar-like cracks that covered his body, on full display due to the fox-human wearing only the loose slacks he had died in, leaving large bare patches in dull, almost ragged fur, so unlike the soft, glossy texture it had had in life. Finally, his eyes, which retained the azure vertical slits, had a gray sclerae.

_Jiji?_ Naruto asked at the same time as Minato asked “Naruto?”

An ear swiveled towards them as the resurrected Naruto surveyed the room.

“Orochimaru was successful then,” Obito crowed, then pointed at the shinobi and Bijuu, “Kill them.”

Everyone tensed as Naruto turned to look at them, a rasenshruiken forming in his hand. But as Minato opened his mouth to try and get through to Kurama’s former Chosen, Naruto’s left eye, the one on the far side of his face from Obito, winked at them. Just as they began to comprehend the significance Naruto flicked the rasenshruiken sideways – at Obito.

Obito yelped, and from the way he was breathing heavily he had barely managed to get kamui activated and disappeared into it fully in time for the jutsu to fly through where he was and detonate the wood pillar he created, causing pebbles to rain from the ceiling.

“Kurama, Minato,” Naruto said after a moment to let the ringing in everyone’s ears die off a bit, “I told you I’d see you again, though admittedly this isn’t what I meant.”

“You’re blonde,” Minato noted, surprised.

“My natural hair color, which was overridden when I merged with Kurama.”

“How are you not enslaved?” Kurama asked.

“Orochimaru somehow managed to sabotage the jutsu.”

“Something that will not happen again,” Obito growled as he stepped out of a corridor opposite of the one Naruto had emerged from.

There was a pause as everyone waited warily watched each other, waiting for someone to make the first move.

“Kurama,” Naruto said, “the Gedo Mazo is-“

Obito lunged towards the humanoid fox, a ball of white-hot fire forming in his palms, only for everyone to be blinded by a blast of not-light that Naruto unleashed. When their sight returned it revealed a semicircle of scorched black stone in front of Naruto and Obito rolling to his feet by the far wall, mask shattered and looking mildly sunburnt.

“Wasn’t as effective as I’d hoped,” Naruto muttered, before continuing his interrupted sentence, “The Gedo Mazo is back down the corridor behind me. I’ve already tried to destroy it, but a rasenshruiken barely cracked it, and I can’t make a bijuudama for obvious reasons.”

“On it,” Kurama said, loping towards the corridor, Kakashi following him.

“No!” Obito cried, teleporting between Kurama and his destination, dodging the kunai Kakashi launched but was clipped by Kurama’s fireball, only for the fire to phase right through Obito without harm, “I will not let you destroy Madara’s work! I will bring peace to this world!”

Lacking any way to reliably hurt Obito through kamui, the other humans instead threw up various chakra barriers between Kurama and the former Konoha nin, which turned out to be unnecessary as a whip made out of purple tinted blue chakra flashed out, quicker than anyone could react, grappling Obito’s leg and throwing him across the room, though Obito landed on his feet.

“Orochimaru is also at the end of the corridor,” Naruto said, looking a Minato, “I suggest you and your Guard secure him. I can handle Obito. If it wasn’t for the seal on his heart I’d try to get him to surrender, but I’ll just have to outlast him instead.”

“There is no seal on me!” Obito denied hotly, earning a dismissive ear flick from Naruto.

“Are you sure Jii-chan?” Minato asked, pushing aside the question of how Naruto knew for certain that Obito had a seal and where it was for later.

Naruto grinned, exposing his numerous fangs, flicking his hand to redirect the brace of kunai Obito launched at him into the wall with a tightly controlled blast of wind.

“Madara at the height of his power couldn’t beat me, even when I was half-dead from his trap and age and my mind was faded. And while I no longer can call on Kurama’s chakra, _none of that is true now_.”

“Look my in the eyes and we’ll see how whole your mind is,” Obito snarled.

Naruto made a hand seal and his eyes turned an unnaturally pure shade of white before he obligingly looked at Obito.

“You bastard.”

“I don’t need my eyes,” Naruto said, as Obito teleported to a different spot in the room and then had to teleport again to dodge the sphere of swirling void, the ball of nothingness eating a large chunk of the cavern wall where it hit before detonating with a bone rattling thud, “I have the ears and nose of a fox. That’s more than sufficient for me to track your breathing and heartbeat.” He turned back to Kurama and the humans. “Go, I’ve got Obito.”

With a last hesitant look, the Allied Shinobi and Kurama darted down the passageway Naruto had been guarding, hearing Naruto call out behind them “Obtio, if you leave me alone, you know that I will completely destroy any chance of Madara’s plan coming to fruition. Your fight is with me.”

That caused the group to exchange some puzzled looks but they couldn’t waste time on the odd statement.

The corridor they were going down was clearly one of the major avenues of the base as it had many rooms branching off of it every few feet, which the group had to clear individually. Most of the rooms were barely used, rooms for visiting Akatsuki members or for hosting meetings, judging from the furniture, but several were used for storage and thus took a long time to clear due to the need to check for traps and or seals hidden behind or beneath miscellaneous objects, spare furniture, and crates of supplies.

Eventually they found the hideous statue that was the Juubi’s corpse. It was massive, the cavern it was located in clearly having been designed to hold it, with the entrance located just below the Juubi’s elbows, everything below that resting in a pit, and Kurama couldn’t tell if it the material it was formed of was more like wood or stone. There was a slight crack in the center of the statue, right between the elbows.

_That thing is ugly_, Kurama’s current Chosen commented in the back of his head, Kurama sending back his agreement. _How did they plan on getting it out though?_

“I’m going to break it,” the Bijuu announced, “Try and keep the ceiling from falling on us afterwards, please.”

He tuned out Minato directing his guard as he focused on the bijuudama he was forming. Denser and denser he compressed the ball of chakra, even as he continuously added more chakra which meant that its external size didn’t change. After a full minute it reached the point where more chakra or greater density would have adverse effects on the bijuudama’s stability, and Kurama launched it at the only mostly dead corpse of his progenitor, the ball of annihilation slamming into the crack his first Chosen had left in it.

The crack held.

A heartbeat passed, then two, and then the bijuudama punched through and detonated inside the Gedo Mazo.

The corpse exploded, shrapnel embedding into walls and the fortifications that Minato and his guard had raised (along with a piece that shredded Kurama’s right ear, but that was easily fixed), accompanied by a tidal wave of foul white ichor that mostly fell into the pit and the bits that splashed up were easily avoided. A surge of extremely malevolent chakra also burst forth, but near instantly dissipated, and Kurama could have sworn he heard a faint ghostly scream with it.

Once everything had settled down Kurama strode to the edge of the pit and looked down on the shattered corpse, lying partially submerged in its ichor, and nodded.

“It’s done,” he said, “But I’m going to collapse the ceiling just to make sure.”

Once everyone was safely out of the room he did just that, launching a bijuudama at the ceiling and shattering it, causing the massive ridge the base had been built into to fall onto the Gedo Mazo.

“Now for Orochimaru,” Minato said as they proceeded deeper into the base, “then back to Jii-chan and help with Obito.”

Thankfully the ritual room with an unconscious Orochimaru in it was only a few doors down. Upon entering the group paused to survey the thoroughly destroyed room, with a large pile of still glowing ashes in the far corner, and the exiled sannin resting against the wall next to the door in the recovery position. Naruto had clearly been thorough in destroying everything related to Edo Tensei.

“Itachi,” Minato said, pulling out another specially prepared kunai, this one linked to one in Konoha, “I need you to take Orochimaru back to Konoha. If he’s been given orders to kill himself upon capture, do whatever is necessary to keep him from doing so. Sharingan included.”

“Hai. Where will it take us?”

“T&I’s med ward.”

“Hang on,” Kurama said, thinking to his Naruto _Did you catch that?_

_Yeah, I’m calling for ANBU now,_ was the reply.

“Kurama?” Minato asked.

“Naruto – the one back in Konoha - is informing ANBU so they know to expect you,” the fox answered.

A few minutes later Naruto sent

_Okay, they’re ready for you. The med staff plan to sedate Orochimaru once he arrives._

“They’re ready, do it,” Kurama told the humans with him.

Itachi, kunai in hand, reached down and grabbed Orochimaru’s shoulder and, with a flicker of chakra, they vanished.

“Now to deal with Obito.” Kurama gave Minato and Kakashi a piercing look. “If it comes to it can you strike to kill?”

Minato took a deep breath and closed his eyes before quietly saying “Yes.”

Kakashi just nodded his head, expression inscrutable behind his mask.

It only took a couple of minutes for the group to make their way back up to where they could still hear Naruto and Obito fighting each other, in distinct contrast to the hour or so it had taken them to deal with the Gedo Mazo and reach Orochimaru.

Kurama had barely entered the now half-destroyed cavern, warily eying the large chunks of the ceiling that were on the floor, when a flicker of movement to his right caused him to looked that way.

And he locked eyes with Obito, who was clearly much worse for wear, clothing torn, bloodstained, and badly bruised, but his eyes were undamaged and the mangekyo swirling in them.

_Fuck!_ Was the only thing Kurama had time to think before he felt Obito pushing into his mind. Then he felt his Chosen Seal activate along with the chirping of birds and Obito’s progress slammed to a halt, but a few moments later he began to make very slow, but steady, progress into the Bijuu’s mind, which wasn’t helped by Kurama’s and Naurto’s mutual panic feeding into each other.

Desperately Kurama tried to break eye contact, but his body struggled to respond, all he could see was the mangekyo, steadily drilling into his mind, his soul. Those eyes filled his entire vision.

And then it broke.

The eyes widened, and the mangekyo faded, leaving normal dark brown irises.

Kurama blinked, and saw Kakashi standing to his front left, right arm extending through Obito’s chest.

Kakashi drew his arm back and Obito collapsed to the floor. The fallen student of Minato blinked once, twice.

And died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might guess by how long it took me to get this chapter out, my muse up and left midway through writing it. I'm not happy with the quality, but I just want to get the story done so it's not hanging over my head anymore.
> 
> Due to the oncoming battle Obito wasn't giving much attention to the orders he gave Orochimaru, which the sannin immediately took advantage of.
> 
> Naruto deliberately poked Obito's seal to keep Obito focused on him.
> 
> Just the Epilogue left now.


	16. Chapter 16

There was the clicking of claws as Naruto senior came into view, far worse for wear with numerous kunai embedded in him, missing his right ear, and deep wounds in his torso that weren’t bleeding, eyes fading back to, well, not normal, but their previous state. He quietly surveyed the scene for a long moment before Kakashi lurched to the side, tore off his mask, and vomited. Minato stepped up behind his last surviving student and simply rubbed his back, his face a mask of sadness.

As Kakashi fell to his knees next to Obito’s corpse and began to sob, Minato dropping next to him and hugging him, Naruto quietly said “Lets give them a moment.”

Kurama followed his former Chosen to the entrance of the shaft that led to the surface, the rest of Minato’s guard obligingly putting several meters between themselves and their comrade and boss.

“You remember everything?” Kurama asked hopefully.

Naruto grinned, shortened tail (Obito had cut the last three inches off somehow) slowly wagging.

“Your first attempts at trying to eat stew wound up with your belly fur soaked with broth that also went up your nose, there were bits of meat embedded between your shoulders, and the bowl –“

“Okay, alright, you remember!” Kurama yelped, embarrassed, to Naruto junior’s disappointment.

“Shukaku, Chomei, and Gyuuki found it absolutely hilarious,” Naruto senior continued before sobering, “How’s the fighting going elsewhere? And have you told your siblings that the Juubi’s corpse has been destroyed?”

It took a moment for Kurama to switch gears then he ducked into the Seishin Sekai to commune with the other Bijuu, which they had refrained from doing so as not to distract the others from their fights and campaigns.

“Well, above us Saiken and Kokuo are pretty sure Zetsu’s dead-“

“Pretty sure?” Naruto interrupted intently.

“They managed to trap the thing in a ball of stone and then several pyromancers pumped so much heat into it the stone melted, so there’s no corpse, but the zetsu clone army dispersed immediately afterwards, so they’re fairly sure. Allied shinobi are hunting down the clones now.”

“And what about the campaigns against Kiri and Rain?” Minato asked as he strode up to the pair, Kakashi trailing behind with bloodshot eyes, snot-stained mask, and rattling breathing, but no longer in the middle of a break-down.

“Allied navies plus Matatabi, Isobu, and Son Goku engaged and defeated Kiri’s navy at the northwestern edge of Water’s archipelago yesterday evening. Kisame was killed in the fight and Samehada was lost to the ocean depths. Isobu is already planning to search for and destroy it once Kiri is pacified,” Kurama reported, “The battle in Ame was declared over an hour ago with a victory for Suna and Fire, albeit with heavy allied casualties. Shukaku, Chomei, Gyuuki, and Killer B engaged Nagato and his retinue and managed to cripple him, but he was extracted from the battle by Yahiko due to Konan sacrificing herself, but not before he destroyed Shukaku’s avatar – who is now unconscious in his seal and will likely remain that way for a week – and dealt Killer B a head wound that he will die from within the next day or two.”

“There’s no hope for B?” Naruto asked quietly.

“His frontal lobe was shredded by bone fragments when his skull was shattered. His Chosen regeneration is the only reason he survived the initial blow, but his condition is steadily deteriorating.”

“What of Sasori or Deidara?” Minato asked.

“No sign of either.”

“_Someone_ was sacrificed to summon me,” Naruto pointed out, “And given the lack of holding cells I doubt it was a captive. I suspect Orochimaru used whoever was guarding him, and given how Sasori turned himself into a puppet I don’t think he would be a valid sacrifice, so it was likely Deidara. Don’t take my word on that though.”

Minato gave the fox-human a decidedly odd look before smiling.

“Well, it’s premature to say that Akatsuki has been vanquished, but this is a blow they will never recover from.”

* * *

That night Minato and Onoki entered the small storeroom Naruto had stashed himself in, correctly arguing that news of his resurrection should be kept to as few people as possible, lest undesirables realize that it was possible to drag souls from the Pure Lands and start getting _ideas_. He had spent the last several hours catching up with the Bijuu while Iwa and Konoha ANBU ransacked the Akatsuki base for every scrap of information they could find. But given how he was oddly knowledgeable about situations and things he really shouldn’t have any knowledge of, Minato and Onoki had decided to have a quiet word with him.

Ignoring the paper taped to the door directing people to keep out without authorization from them, and signed with both of their signatures, the pair entered the room, causing the conversation in the room to die as the three Bijuu and demi-human all seated on the floor turned to look at them.

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Onoki said, not sounding particularly happy, “With the Gedo Mazo destroyed the Juubi can never again threaten the world.”

“Not quite,” Naruto said.

Everyone looked sharply at the humanoid fox.

“Time travel is a thing,” He said in explanation.

“You’re certain?” Onoki demanded.

“I have personal experience.”

“You’re a time traveler,” Minato blurted, a bunch of pieces abruptly falling into place.

Naruto nodded.

Onoki noticed none of the Bijuu seemed surprised by this.

“You knew,” he accused.

“This is one of those things that’s so dangerous that we would take it to our grave if we could die,” Kurama said, “None of the current Chosen were told, though ours,” he indicated himself, Saiken, and Kokuo, “are listening in and are now aware.”

“Someone could jump back and keep you from ever meeting Kurama,” Minato realized, “Allowing Madara to find and enslave Kurama and the other Bijuu.”

Naruto sighed.

“In my original timeline that’s exactly what happened,” he said, “No one stopped Madara from enslaving Kurama and the Jinchuriki program was used in response.”

Both Onoki and Minato hissed.

“That could not have ended well,” Onoki said.

“There were frequent ‘Bijuu rampages’ as they tried to free themselves, with all the casualties you’d expect from that, but the knock-on effects were much worse. Without a neutral power negating some of Zetsu’s machinations the Shinobi Wars were much worse, being five way instead of three and causing an order of magnitude more casualties. That meant there was far more distrust allowing Akatsuki to seal the Bijuu into the Gedo Mazo with minimal opposition. By the time we realized what they were up to it was too late and they managed to resurrect the Juubi.”

“Shit,” Minato said, “No wonder you went back in time.”

“And now we have to make sure all our work is not undone. Currently a missing nin from Suna called Mukade is finalizing a jutsu involving time travel – and his work is what the seal that sent me back in time is based on – but, thankfully, has been unable to experimentally test it.”

Onoki abruptly looked like he had abruptly realized the answer to a question that had bothered him for a long time, followed by being deeply uncomfortable.

“He did test it,” Naruto stated.

“There was a situation about ten years ago in a minor country to the west of Earth,” Onoki said, “there was a fight over a chakra nexus between a shinobi puppeteer and several of my ANBU, except the ANBU involved had been with me the entire incident.” He nodded. “I’ll handle him. Best to limit possible paradoxes. The thought of Nagato possibly getting his hands on his research…”

Everyone grimaced.

After a long pause Naruto sighed.

“My time’s almost up.”

“What?” Kurama demanded, whipping around to look at him.

“This body can’t regenerate chakra, and keeping my soul bound here puts a steady draw on my chakra reserves.”

“What about Senjutsu?” the fox asked.

Naruto laughed.

“I’m _undead_, Kurama. That’s almost literally the opposite of a natural state.”

“But surely there’s a way to restore your chakra?” Kurama insisted.

“Edo Tensi is a necromantic jutsu, you can guess as well as I what that would require.”

Kurama sagged. Naruto smiled, leaning forward to gently cup Kurama’s chin, rubbing his thumb across the fox’s cheek.

“Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. Look to the future, do not wallow in the past.”

Naruto gave Kurama a soft stroke with his other hand, from head to mid-way down the fox’s back.

“Goodbye, my oldest and dearest friend.”

There was a pulse of senjutsu, and Naruto’s body began to dissolve into ash from the extremities in, leaving only a pile of ash and a final plea

“_Live for me, Kurama._”

* * *

Obito’s funeral pyre was crude, but hot, attended only by Minato, Kushina, and Kakashi.

“It’s hard to believe he’s gone for good,” Kushina said, quietly crying. Seeing Kakashi’s flinch she added “I don’t blame you, Kakashi. If the Obito we knew knew what would become of him, I think he would have wanted you to put him down.”

Minato hugged Kakashi with one arm, not turning away from the pyre.

“If you hadn’t done it, I would have,” he softly said.

“…But Rin…”

“She would have understood.”

Kushina turned and hugged Kakashi tightly.

“Let it out,” she whispered, “It’s just us here.”

Kakashi broke down crying.

** _ fin _ **

* * *

Post Script:

Nagato went on to become Pain, rallying the remnants of the Akatsuki around himself. When he emerged from hiding four years later, he was faced by all nine of the Bijuu and their Chosen, backed by an international taskforce of elite jounin drawn from the great nations. Nagato was slain in the fight, by a combined hit from Naruto and Kurama, along with all his lieutenants (Yahiko, Sasori, etc), and Akatsuki was destroyed for good.

Orochimaru was eventually freed from the slave seal, but despite his exile having been rescinded he chose to return to his lab in Sound and continue resurrecting extinct Sage Animals. His next project was to resurrect the kitsune in truth with the help of the Fox Summons. By the time of his death three decades later over ninety percent of the Sage species driven extinct by the Juubi had been resurrected. The research complex that slowly sprang up around his lab became a university in accordance with his last wishes, and even centuries later the Orochimaru University would be the world leader in genetics, biology, and their relationship with chakra.

Minato eventually retired from the Hokage position, having held it for exactly half a century. When Kakashi declined to succeed him he consulted with the clan heads to choose a successor, leading to the first Uchiha Hokage, Sasuke’s grandson. He then spent his twilight years with Kushina and his grand, and great-grand, kids, continuing to invent new fuinjutsu seals that could be fused with rapidly advancing technology. Minato and Kushina would live well into their nineties, and die peacefully within a week of each other. He never realized that Naruto senior was a time traveling version of his eldest child.

Kakashi, despite the best efforts of all of the women in his life, never took a wife nor sired a child, instead remaining a part of the Namikaze family as Naruto’s honorary brother. Naruto and Remon’s children, and later grandchildren, adored him, and he always had time for them. He died peacefully at the age of seventy-four watching the latest generation of Namikaze children playing, a spiritual successor to _Icha-Icha_ in hand. (Leading to many tear-filled jokes as to what he had been doing at the time of his death from his students and sensei at his funeral). He never did remove his mask, and was cremated with it in place.

Sasuke never thought much of his admittedly highly successful shinobi career, instead viewing his impact on the world through how many Uchiha developed the sharingan, the lower the number the better, thought he didn’t count those that gained their eyes through watching a respected elder pass peacefully in their sleep. When an Uchiha a generation younger than him developed the mangekyo, he took it as a very personal failure. When Futaku retired, Itachi refused the position of Clan Head, having never forgotten nor forgiven the machinations of the clan elders in his youth, resulting in Sasuke taking the position. Sasuke later wrote in his memoirs that the proudest moment in his life was watching his grandson be crowned Hokage.

The Bijuu and Chosen continued to function as the neutral arbiters of the world, being directly credited with having prevented multiple wars and facilitating numerous treaties that slowly repaired the relations between the nations of the world. They also continued to act as the primary line of defense against global threats, such as sealed demons or the power-mad poking things best left alone. Five centuries after Naruto first joined with Kurama back in the Kyuubi forest, all of the Chosen had broken their mutagenic limiters, choosing to spend the next several millennia with their soul-bonded companion and the other Bijuu, Chosen, and Sage Summons.

Hinata eventually married Naruto and Kurama – as with all Chosen, there was no way to have a relationship with one half of the pair without also having one with the other half – and dropped out of the shinobi corps to start a family in her late twenties, eventually giving birth to two boys. Upon becoming clan head of the Hyuuga in her mid-forties she managed to achieve her lifelong dream of reforming the Hyuuga into a clan to be proud of by the time she retired. Unfortunately, she began to suffer from dementia in her eighties and chose to die with dignity at the age of eighty-seven, surrounded by her husband, Kurama, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Kin and Dai spent several decades accompanying Naruto and Kurama on their missions, often bringing new kitsune with them in the later years, before they had to return the Fox-Kitsune Summon realm to become the elders of their resurrected species. Naruto was the first person to sign the new Kitsune Summoning contract. As the years passed and the humans they had grown up with died, they turned to the Bijuu and Chosen, as well fellow summons for companionship. Both had also achieved their ninth tail by their six hundredth birthday.

Naruto maintained his predecessor’s tradition of being based in Konoha, arguing that someone had to maintain the Chosen complex. After both Hinata and Sasuke achieved jounin he reopened the Path of the Fox, which had closed after Naruto Sr’s death. While he never did stop his activities as Chosen after marrying Hinata, he did make sure he was always there for his family, constantly carrying a quantum-linked communicator on him at all times with Hinata having the other half, regularly having a nightly conversation with his family whenever he was in the field. A few years after his second son was born he, with the full knowledge and approval of his wife and parents, broke the mutagenic limiters in his seal, causing him to slowly mutate into a blonde anthro-fox over the next three decades, the blonde fading to Kurama’s distinctive flame-color fur over the next century. This was shortly followed by Gaara also breaking his limiters. By the time Naruto’s eldest graduated from Konoha’s shinobi academy he was universally recognized as the leader of the Chosen. He is aware that Naruto Sr is actually a time-traveling version of himself, having figured it out when he finished transforming into his hybrid form and finds it both intimidating and a source of determination. It will be many millennia before he leaves for the Pure Lands.

It took years for Kurama to work through his first Chosen’s death but he took his final words to heart. He was a constant, and constantly mischievous, presence in the lives of both his sons and Naruto’s. He even managed to rebuild the bridges he had burned with his siblings in his pain and self-hate over the first two millennia of his life. Over the next several thousand years he would occasionally look back and compare himself of the then with himself of the now and be grateful all over again for the old human who had looked at a bitter old fox, wallowing in self-hate and lashing out at the world that had caused him so much pain, and offered a hand in kindness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished.
> 
> Finally.
> 
> It has been an... adventure is one way to say it. But three months after I probably should have finished it, it's at least done. I might add a one shot or two to the series regarding that side adventure where Family!Naruto crosses over with Canon!Naruto, but at this time I'm completely burned out with Naruto. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the journey.


End file.
